


Let it Lie

by yuuki_Illene



Series: Yuu's Tony Stark Bingo 2019 [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon-Typical Violence, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minimal Salt, Reconciliation, Recovery, Science Bros, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, steve is well meaning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-11-27 05:27:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18190364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuuki_Illene/pseuds/yuuki_Illene
Summary: It begins with Tony in an alleyway and getting mugged.But what has already been stolen is best left in the dark.Or: a chance encounter becomes an opportunity to reveal a buried truth; and there's finally a chance to talk it out, rage andheal.2019 Tony Stark Bingo R2 - Dark Alleys





	1. feeling up

Getting mugged, in retrospect, is something that Tony isn’t used to.

Which surprises him sometimes, since he was filthy rich and all.

But no matter how reckless he was during his days as a party animal, he always took precautions to ensure his own safety. Traumatising lessons from kidnappings in his childhood  were hard to forget. They taught him to keep away from the streets at late night, to never accept a drink from someone he didn’t know unless he saw them pouring it, to have his driver on speed dial 24/7. Later, it was to keep Happy by his side — whose bulk made for an appropriate deterrence against unwanted advances, and it worked for the majority of his life until Afghanistan.

Getting mugged after outing himself as Iron Man, however, became nearly improbable. His change of status from civilian to superhero meant that the average mugger wouldn’t _dare_ to come close, especially when they preferred weaker prey and obscurity. Attempting to rob a man in red and gold armour was a hard opposite, and it was a decision that would probably send them through the wall in a second flat.

Trouble for him came from the supervillain territory now, and he almost misses the times where his enemies wanted his money more than his life.

And Tony likes to think he’s a good catch. He’s a billionaire — screams it with his three-piece suits, really — he carries around cash for extravagant tips and he’s good looking. People should be _dying_ to rob him and yet no one even comes close to it.

It’s only natural that he comes to a few conclusions:

  1. They must be really desperate if they want to rob his person
  2. They are really good to even get the _drop_ on him because his AIs doesn’t take well to threats to his person. Or
  3. They might just be really stupid.



He also conveniently forgets the last option because it’s boring, and no one would be that stupid to not know his face. His face appears frequently on the billboards, and he knows it since _it’s right there_ as he’s strolling down the quieter streets of London after hashing out an arc reactor instalment over dinner.

Creeping towards winter, the night breeze is cold, but not enough to bite. It’s nice enough that he decides to stroll the streets aimlessly to soak in the quiet and _think_ , which is an opportunity he rarely has with all the commitments he’s piled with.

“J, leave the week nearing the arc reactor instalment for SI’s London subsidiary free, and ramp up the arc reactor on my agenda list. I want the statistics for energy usage and the average expected life span of the tower compiled into my private servers and sent to Pepper for review. It’s time we improved it; we’ve been neglecting the full potential of Starkanium for too long. And if there’s any scientist seminar conferences the next time I come to Europe, I want a spot as the guest speaker and the time to crack open some brains. EU’s intending to move towards clean energy, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a piece of the proverbial pie.

“Which speaking of, hire more manpower for London’s SI, and fire the finance manager that’s been going around in the rumours. Once is a coincidence, twice is fishy, three times a trend – and SI doesn’t stand for such work harassment. Leave a reference at your own discretion. And if need be, ask HR to circulate a warning around.”

His mind was circulating around the ramifications for the arc reactor and improving its efficiency and longevity when a hand suddenly grabs him from an alleyway and shoves him against a wall, and _God is the man strong_.

Fingers curl around his throat and Tony reminds himself to _breathe._ Shallowly. His juiced-up gauntlet behind his back starts bleeding onto his hand and relieves his spine from coarse brick.

“Dude, chill,” he gasps out as quickly as possible, slapping the mugger’s muscular arm with his normal hand. “And if you’re going to say money or your life like some kind of cheap mugger I’m gonna be real disappointed.”

Stunned by his words, his assailant actually _freezes_ and backs off as if he burned him. He looks like he’s going to run with the way his head jerks towards the opening and then back at him, as if he’s torn about how much trouble he was worth.

_Okay, now that’s just offensive._ Tony scoffs hysterically as he rubs his throat while getting some much-needed air. Without prompting, his gauntlet reforms back into a watch. _And what’s with people going for my throat, seriously?_

“Look, Tramp except broodier.” The Stark says placatingly. Beneath the unkempt mop of dark hair, blue eyes flash in confusion.

Slowly, he takes out a few hundred dollars from his wallet and moves to give to his mugger. “You’re not in trouble okay? I’m not going to report you. Just take the money and go treat yourself something nice. You look like you need it. No strings attached, I promise. You can have the money.”

His mugger takes a step back, unsure.

Tony sighs. “Okay, this is weird,” he mutters to himself before raising his volume again. “I’m serious. Hell, if you need a job, just stop by Stark Industries and say that TS recommended you. You look like a fighter. You act like one, although you can dial down your murder-y persona a bit. But we could use people like you in security. Happy would be happy. It’s a double win.”

“Why—” His mugger finally speaks up, voice painfully distressed for reasons Tony can’t comprehend, “Why are you doing this?”

Tony takes one look at his mugger’s tensed stance. Casually, he fixes his tie higher to hide the forming bruise. “What? Helping you? Do you not want help?”

His blue-eyed stare intensifies.

As a reply, Tony gestures at the man and then at himself. “I’m in the position to, obviously. You on the other hand, are well-built, which means you’ve doing okay, but your clothes suggest you’ve either been on the run or thrown out about a week ago. And you’re probably a good person since you stopped robbing me even when you’re clearly desperate. Also, who even does that, what kind of moral mugger are you? Do you even _succeed_?”

Despite the man’s growing confusion, Tony barrels on and presses the cash into the mugger’s hand and pats his fingers close. “Plus, do you know how infrequently people rob me? Offensively little, that’s what. So, if anyone dares to, it only makes sense if I _reward_ them, right? That being said, do you want food? I know an _excellent_ diner nearby and they should be still be open.”

And since Tony Stark is the type of person who tends to go all the way, logic and consequences be damned, he starts pulling the man towards his car. It’s a bit of a stretch from where they were but he figures his mugger won’t be getting out of his stunned state any time soon.

Afterall, Iron Man tends to arrive with a bang and takes no prisoners.

Well, except this one.

 

…

 

Somehow, it leads them to a diner that JARVIS discreetly directed him to via the GPS, whose coffee consistency reminds him of motor oil. For a moment, he almost suspects that DUM-E had infiltrated the kitchens, but he’s also 30% certain he didn’t install new repulsor technology on his quirky robotic child.

(It’s a still toss-up if JARVIS would inform him about the decision since he’s adorably fond of his oldest brother.)

“So…” Tony hums as he watches the man in front of him scarf down the food he bought for him like a ravenous animal, “What’s your name, Tramp?”

His mugger barely heard him, too busy trying to shove the hot pancakes down his throat by sheet. It’d be disturbing to watch if Tony hadn’t witnessed Thor and Steve eat after a strenuous mission (and the God eating an entire cow is not an exaggeration) or Bruce inhaling curry after Hulking out. Moments like these, with plates or takeout boxes stacking sky high, are moments where the billionaire questions if they were going to literally eat him out of house and home.

Impatiently, he waits for an answer while he surreptitiously checks his phone for any notifications. JARVIS sent one, alerting him that there was something _off_ about the man in front of him but Tony ignores it. He sees nothing threatening about a man who was starving and driven into desperation-filled robbery and gets small chunks of pancake stuck in his beard in his haste.

Finally done with his plate, the man wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve before replying, “As— Winter. Winter’s fine.”

He pushes his plate of food towards the man. “If that’s what you want, Jack Frost.”

Winter’s face creases into a frown. “Jack Frost?”

“Well, your name sure as hell isn’t Winter,” replies Tony cheerfully as he sips on his coffee. “Does it matter if I give you a nickname instead?”

“Guess not.” His mugger mutters. Hesitantly, he nudges the plate of food back at him.

Rolling his eyes, Tony pushes it back.

Winter visibly struggles again before he says, “What about you? Sustenance. Food?”

“Don’t worry about me, snowflake, the next batch of food will be coming soon. Plus, you look like you need it more than me with the way you’ve been eating.”

“You should eat,” Winter insists.

“I will.”

“Coffee- coffee ain’t food.”

_How did I manage to find someone to mother hen me despite flying to a different continent?_ Tony wonders with dawning horror. How did he go from meeting someone who nearly robbed him of his money and life to said person worrying about his food intake?

Disturbed, he changes the subject. “Anyway, what kind of stuff did you use to do? Fighting, teaching, engineering and fixing up cars, et cetera. Give me a rundown of your resume.”

The look of distress he saw in the alleyway returns back to his mugger’s face. In the moonlight, it was hard to make out his features. Now, under the sepia lighting of the restaurant, hair pulled back by a random elastic, the torment in darkened irises is undeniable. The fork in his left hand bends under the pressure he exerts and Tony’s hackles rise.

He catalogues both of his hands. One hand gloved, the other isn’t. He chokes with his right hand which suggests it’s his dominant, but his left clearly possessed more raw strength. His eyebrows furrow.

Quick to defuse the situation, Tony quickly adds: “You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to. Yours won’t be as impressive as mine anyway, considering who I am and what I can do. Saving the world isn’t something anyone can accomplish, or I’d be out of a job. And have heard of what SI has been doing recently? Revolutionising green energy and the telecommunications, riveting stuff, I know.”

Winter lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. The fork clatters on the table pathetically. “S’fine.” He croaks. “Just…processin’. I can do those. ‘Cept the last one. Others… M’good. _Really_ good.”

_But you don’t sound proud of it_ , lies on the tip of Tony’s tongue, familiar with self-deprecation when he hears it. Despite himself, he nods along. “That’s good. As expected, you’ll be good for security. So how about it? Do you want a job?”

“Ready to com—” Winter halts again, teeth clicking together harshly. “Is that—Why are you offering?”

He sounds so utterly confused by the show of human compassion it puzzles Tony.

“Because I can.” Tony replies simply, as if it was the know-all and be-all of the world. “Stark Industries boasts a record of over six thousand employees world-wide and it could use more talents, no matter what field of expertise. We aim to provide our employees with a satisfactory pay, comprehensive healthcare plans and housing if necessary, to facilitate safe and conducive working conditions. So? Are you going to take me up on it or leave me hanging, Snow Queen?”

“No hard feelings if you don’t want it,” he adds as an afterthought, not wanting to seem like he was forcing Winter into a decision.

Determination frames the arch of Winter’s mouth. “I want it.” Then, with more conviction, “I want the job.”

Tony’s smile takes on a hundred-watts. “Good choice, Winter. Welcome to Stark Industries.”

 

…

 

“Sir, I feel that it is imperative to inform you that Mr. Winter is not who you think he is. Or rather, he is not as helpless as you assume him to be.”

Tony’s finger hovers inches away from his throat. “What do you mean, J?”

And well, Tony kind of understand where his AI was coming when he inspected at the injury inflicted on his person. Winter’s choke lines his throat like a tightened, coiled rope, and its colour was moving towards the purple spectrum of bruises. Swallowing hurt; but it would be more manageable after he gets his hands on Cho’s remedy and stuck to bite sized food.

“Six months ago, the Captain brought up a mission to bring one James Buchanan Barnes into the fold, did he not?” JARVIS prompts, allowing his creator to form his own conclusions.

“Facts?” says Tony sharply.

“Scans show that his left arm is decidedly not of biological matter, comprising of 83.4 percent metal alloy and 16.6 percent polymer, sir. More detailed scans are required for the sake of accuracy. Facial recognition is within a margin of error of 6.74 percent due to the obstruction of facial hair and poor image quality but stands at 74.35 percent rate of similarity when compared to pictures of Sergeant Barnes available in the archives. Conclusion: Mr. Winter is indisputably Mr. Barnes.”

Incredulous laughter bubbles up. It stings. “So somehow, by sheer chance, I managed to find Capsicle’s bestie after he accosted me in a dark alley?”

“It would seem so, Sir.”

In his mind, he can hear his inner Pepper sighing and commenting, “Only you, Tony.”

Tony stops prodding the bruise at his throat. He scrutinises his own reflection, landing on the noose-like imprints on his neck. His grin widens and JARVIS prepares his servers for what his creator was going to say.

“J, be a dear and create a new file, will you? Create a false identity for one James _Winter_ and make him a distant cousin from the Barnes, twice removed at least. Give him an inconspicuous education record, same for his job, but list that his latest ended on less than desirable terms. After that’s fool proof, work on restoring his actual identity.” His fingers rapt on the sink thoughtfully, stuck on the image of a man who didn’t know what to do with himself rather than the Sergeant who featured heavily in American propaganda. “It’s still his to have if he wants it but… give him an out.”

“Consider it done, sir. Would you like me to patch you to Captain as well?”

He gives the phone he propped on the bathroom shelf a contemplative look. “Is that our story to tell?”

“That has never stopped you, Sir.”

Tony snorts at the jab. “Sass. No idea where you got it from.”

“It’s one of the greatest mysteries,” agrees JARVIS humbly.

“Let’s bide our time for a bit,” Tony decides as he pulls a MIT hoodie over his head. Carefully, he tucks the extra fabric up to hide the forming bruise. “And see who gives chase to the mouse we’ve found.”

“A mouse is scarcely an apt metaphor for the Winter Soldier, Sir. He is rather vicious for an animal so tame.”

“A cornered one always is,” he replies. “J, pull up the stats and locations of non-Avenger related HYDRA incidents to track the trial he came from. If there’s any old SHIELD employees pushing pens at SI, get them to scan the existing SHIELD documents and excavated HYDRA ones for Winter Soldier.” He hums, adding an afterthought, “And wake FRIDAY. It’s time for baby girl to stretch her legs in the motherload of data our resident spy and captain dumped.”

He proceeds to shudder at the thought of both tasks; old linotypes were not the best in terms of ink preservation, and the data dump with its sheer volume alone was difficult enough to wade through.

His baby girl had been asking for challenge… And Tony has no doubt she’ll overcome any difficulties she faces in encryption.

Swiping his phone off the shelf, Tony exchanges it for a Stark Pad to grant his AI extra processing power for the holograms. He really needed to keep his other properties up to date on technological advancements.

“Are we going down that particular rabbit hole, Sir?”

Despite his wariness, JARVIS still projects the entire web of information gathered from his servers for his creator. The room lights up in fluorescent blue of a flattened world map, with numerous points appearing one by one as he collated and confirmed.

“Oh buddy,” Tony laughs as he scans the plain, “We’re already standing at the entrance of the lion’s den.”

Resigned, JARVIS suggests, “May I insist on back-up, sir?”

“Nope,” the mad inventor cheerfully says. “Down low, J. In fact, place all of it under Protocol Nobody Explodes. Passcode indigo-delta-seven-alpha-foxtrot-moron-one-four.”

“The protocol requires a second participant. Who might that be?”

“You, of course. Why would I need back-up when I have you, J?”

His AI sighs, and it sounds like a computer powering down.

“Your trust in me is heart-warming, Sir.”

“Always. Now… Let’s start with house that burned down recently…”

 

…

 

When Tony reaches the doorway of Winter’s designated room, he can’t help but sigh.

It’s a mark of an assassin when the first thing Winter does after being assigned to a guest room is to re-arrange the furniture. Clint and Natasha were the same, except they were subtler about it. Well, as subtle as sleeping under the bed or considering the concrete ground of the roof to be a better alternative could be when it came to the Hawkass. Natasha still preferred the comfort of mattresses, although Tony was certain she could weaponize the linen sheets if need be.

And live long enough with them, one was bound to notice these habits. The couches placed within jumping range of vents. The alarming number of knives turning up in every drawer of the Tower. The faint scent of gun grease – something the inventor was intimately familiar with.

And the Winter Soldier was cut from the same cloth. He pushes his bed towards the window wall so he was immediately out of sight, and the headboard was shifted out enough for a weapon or two to be attached.

He sits on the marble floor even when there was a chair and a bed—and wasn’t that just the most damning thing?

Tony knocks the door before leaning against it. “Redecorating, I see?”

Winter tries to pass it off as nonchalance, but Tony sees the tension running across his broad shoulders as he shrugs. Understandably, an assassin of his calibre would not taught the same way the Black Widows were. The Winter Soldier embodied force and lethality in a pre-emptive strike; whereas Romanov focused on flexibility and weaknesses to get close for the last blow.

And it shows.

Briefly, the inventor mulls how badly it would spook the ghostly assassin if he brought up the topic of his synthetic limb. Now armed with the knowledge that it was metal… he _really_ wants to get his hands on it.

Tony glances at the glass panes. Looks back at the Winter Soldier.

_Yeah, it's not worth it._

“Hey, instead of sitting around here, do you want to watch a movie instead?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sincere thanks to [roseandthorns28](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandthorns28), [kimannhart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimannhart/pseuds/kimannhart) and [feignedsobriquet ](https://www.pillowfort.io/feignedsobriquet) for helping me beta this ;-;
> 
> Without them, this would be a greater... yeah, let's not go there xD
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3


	2. Interface

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (The Asset wants to be decommissioned.)

The Asset needs to be punished. |

Objective: Kill Captain America and Black Widow.

_Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak._

The handler places a grenade launcher in his hand. Milkor MGL. 300-millimetre barrel. 5.3 kilograms. The weight will not compromise the Asset’s effectiveness. SIG-Sauer P220. Fatality count: 67. Standard grip. 8 round magazine. The Asset checks the clip and the functionality of the gun. Serviceable.

Mission parameters:  
Take no prisoners. All damages allowed. Casualty with cause.

_Seventeen. Benign. Nine._

Hail Hydra.

Yet, static images… static memories appear. Conflicting objectives. Skinny elbows. Eliminate. Blue eyes. Bright smile. Eliminate.

_Homecoming. One. Freight Car._

A little sister. Wiry limbs. Red hair. Fierce eyes.

The Asset should not have memories. The Asset has to be wiped after every mission. The Asset needs to be recalibrated back to the optimal condition of a tool. The Asset does not think. It only obeys.

Hail Hydra Hail Hydra HailHYDRA HaIL HyDRA

The Asset has failed to comply. Failure is unacceptable.

Failure to meet objective only results in the punishment of the Asset. Twenty strokes of the cane. Another wipe. Thirty on the snake whip. Another wipe. Wipe. Wipe. Wipe. Wipe.

Decommissioned. Yes / No. Pending approval.

The Asset is ready to comply.

A handler is required to punish the Asset. A handler has to handle the procedures of the wipe. There must be a handler at all times—

But there is no one. **No one.**

Information gathered concludes that HYDRA has been exposed. HYDRA has fallen. HYDRA does not fall.

Cut off one head and another rises. HYDRA is infinite. HYDRA will prevail.

( _hydra is wrong)_

It knows more faces than what is required of the mission. Steve Rogers. The first recipient of Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum. 5”4. 220 pounds. No known medical conditions. Asthma. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Skinny elbows. _Stevie_. Equips a shield primarily. Seen with a sidearm. Model: Stark Auto. 12 round magazine. Contoured grips. 4.4-millimetre bullet diameter.

Natalia Romanov. Black Widow. KGB defect. 170 centimetres. 59 kilograms. Skilled at close combat and weaponry. The Asset once trained her. _Big Brother_.

The Asset is malfunctioning.

It is aware.

The Asset requires another wipe.

…

Protocol: Preserve the Asset.

Do not get injured. Find a handler. Find a HYDRA base. Shoot hostiles on sight.

The Asset stains the grey uniform red when it aims and shoots the operative between the eye. Kill confirmation: another shot into the eye, another bullet in the back of the skull. The Asset must minimise ammunition usage until next resupply.

The Asset cannot comply.

Captain America and Black Widow are tracing the Asset. The Asset must run. The Asset cannot be caught.

For HYDRA.

_For it._

Therefore, Asset must stay in optimal condition.

Sustenance. Rest. Handler. HYDRA.

Food is easy to find. The Asset stays in the shadow and takes what he needs.

Bread. Water.

The Asset can go on for seventy-two hours without another injection. It keeps moving.

But the Asset _cannot rest._

There is no cold darkness when it drifts off. He sees images again. A boy who cries. A mother pleading for life. The slamming of his hand against heads. Vibration. Pain. Bang. Bang. Pressing a gun barrel against another. The light bleeds out. The silence gags.

Red. Silver. _Red. Red. Red._

Nightmares. They are called nightmares.

The Asset… does not get nightmares.

Further recalibration required.

…

 

The Asset wants to be decommissioned. |

Footsteps. The warehouse is supposed to be empty until 0710 hours. The security changes shift at 0630. The Asset breathes shallowly. The gun is an assuring weight in his flesh hand. SIG-Sauer P220. Fatality count: 72. Weapon in factory condition. He takes aim.

“ _Soldat_.”

An exhale. The slowing of hearts. _Bang._ It recoils. Echoes. Then, silence.

His syllables were growing too loud. Distorted. Promises a barren land. Promises Hell.

(hail hydra)

Ten words. He drowns them in gunfire; in unspeakable rage. Not again.

But the Asset finds himself stuck on something repeated. _Bucky._

B.U.C.K.Y.

An identity.

Who the Hell is Bucky?

A name. English. Shortened. Suggests familiarity with his target. A possible vulnerability to exploit. More information is required.

The lead brings him to the Smithsonian Institution.

The information he finds should be discarded. The World War II exhibit features mannequins dressed in woollen, brown uniforms except Captain America who stands at helm in his tacky red, blue and white uniform and Barnes who wore a dark blue vest.

Bucky Barnes is a stranger.

All the Asset receives as he reads through the accounts of war are these:

Stilted conversations with no replies. Flash-frozen faces, caught in the moment, like an ant in amber with no way out. Happenings with a foregone conclusion. Memories that are pictures and words without sound; a fragmented simulation of make-believe where he can see the cracks tearing through smiles. He’s peering at them but he’s behind the glass, fingers pressed against cool detachment and with no conviction to break it.

He gains nothing and everything at once.

The Asset keeps moving.

…

 

Once, his handlers brought him to an execution.

Aleksandr Sokolov was sentenced to death by hanging for revealing information pertinent to HYDRA. HYDRA does not tolerate traitors.

The Asset recalls the noose being pulled onto the traitor’s neck, the rope boiled to lessen the tension and bounce. The rope was a finger thick, coiled around two ends to form the noose and they pull it hard enough to choke him.

The Asset does not know how to sympathise with the traitor. It is not within his functioning parameters.

The chair gets kicked away. Legs dangle and writhe like two pendulums. He remembers the traitor’s face go red, then blue, and his eyes enlarging. His mouth was caught in the horror of the moment, agape and gasping. He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t _breathe_.

The Asset is running out of places to go.

New York. Pennsylvania. Tennessee. Missouri. Kansas. New Mexico. Utah. Wyoming. Nebraska. Illinois.

He feels the noose wounding around his neck, the knot closing in.

They keep pushing and searching, and he keeps running and hiding.

He must not be found. He cannot be caught.

He knows where he is heading is where the main headquarters are located and where it all begun, buried ten feet under. But the safest place is the most dangerous; and the connected continent is so much larger.

His instincts ring: of a sniper who stays low amongst the bushes despite being expected to take a vantage point, preferring to be in the range of gunfire rather than take hits from mortar shells. Someone who played expectations, who fought battles to win (even though he was done holding a gun), one at a time.

And the Asset is a ghost story no one dares to tell.

He hides among shadows that he knows all too well and slips in and out of the dwells of the underworld. He seeks a target, another name, searching for something as intangible as he was.

One foot in front of another, he tells himself. _March_.

 

First, Prague. Poland. Slovakia. Ukraine.

 

Next. Next. Next.

 

His conditions are failing.

There has been no time to recuperate. No optimal locations to source for food.

He’s living on borrowed time.                               

It ticks down like sand sliding down an hourglass, piling at the bottom and so… _trapped._

But there _are_ moments in between where it’s calm. When he allows himself to sit under the bridge and observe the graffiti scattered across cement. Slangs, images and ‘here says’ are strewn across their chosen canvas, announcing intent and presence.  The water trickles down from a leak and ruins both paint and grey, and the sound of flowing water is louder than those overhead. Street lamps light up one by one as evening approaches and he’s just another face in the crowd.

There is comfort in anonymity; something sane in uncertainty and he holds onto that.

“What are you running from?” Someone asks.

He acknowledges the man slumped a few feet away from him for the first time.

Answers run through his head. Ignore him. Then, truthfully: wars. Life. Lie.

“The past,” he finally croaks out, syntax akin to sandpaper on his tongue.

But HYDRA finds him. They always do.

_“Time will break your will, soldat. We’ll make sure of it.”_

 

Like a trap, the Asset _springs_. He’s a flurry of fists and stolen knives, a person weaponised; whose double-edged steel cuts the creators and himself. Bones break under his strength. And he will not relent. He does not flinch at the pain of blows. Desensitised himself to the penetration of bullets. The slashes on him bleed sluggishly whereas his are lethal — punishing, bone deep and exacting.

Just like they taught him in trials of repetition without rest, how they dug into him and hollowed him out before filling him with the contents they wanted. They should be _proud_.

He’s the monster they created. But now he’s the monster who haunts their sleep.

When he lets the last body drop from his grip, he shudders.

Barnes stares at his hands — synthetic and real — with little difference between them due to the crimson that stains it. Blood slips off metal easier. Whereas it slips into the nooks and crannies of his finger prints and lines.

Red is sacrifice. Red is HYDRA. Red is anger.

This is second nature. This is _him._

Inscrutably, undeniably.

An asset.

Gingerly, he picks up the SIG-Sauer P220 he abandoned mid-fight. He traces the deformed barrel that he had used to bash an operative’s head with. Feels for the smoothened trigger as if they were rosary beads. Fatality count: 82. He lays it back down amidst bodies and blood, as if it was a bouquet of flowers in a cemetery.

The Asset is not Bucky Barnes.

But he’s not the soldat either.

…

 

Rest… sleep… still doesn’t come easy to him.

On better days, he remembers the rasp of a lullaby and a gentle hand carding through shorter hair. He’s pulled into the darkness by the countdown of inhales and exhales, numbered in ones and twos. He thinks of thinner arms wrapping around him, those brief moments of weakness they allow themselves before they separate because they will not save each other if one sinks.

The nights where he jolts awake, where comfort is a sharp knife and metal fingers pressed into flesh to remind him of what’s left of him are the ones where he recalls too clearly. Dates. Faces. Causes of death. It’s him. It’s always the Asset.

These skeletons are his to bear. The nights he sinks — deeper and deeper, without end and direction — are the ones he finds mass graves carved in his name. The skulls tower. Prominent figures. Traitorous members. The brilliant who had to be squashed. The witnesses who were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Soldiers who fought on the opposite end of the battlefield, whose only crime was fighting for the other side.

Seventy years. Countless targets.

The Winter Soldier is a ghost story no one wants to tell.

Would you, when it turns its head to mark you for death next?

The Asset stops trying to sleep when recollection haunts him awake.

Desperation drives him forward.

Budapest reminds him of political leaders who reached too far. Srebrenica a massacre. He doesn’t stay long in Munich. France is filled with memories of a language he half-remembers. He’s not sure if it’s the conversations or the campaign he dislikes more, or the fact that he can’t fully remember these caches of time.

And by some miracle, he crosses the sea to get to Britain undetected.

By then, he’s _exhausted._

(The Asset wants to be decommissioned.)

He runs to survive. He fights to survive.

For what? For who? How long will this go on?

All he has are questions without answers. Like he’s in a tunnel with no light at the end. If he’s merely circling in the dark in a futile gesture of rebellion, then he should just _stop_. (The Asset requires a Handler.)

Life blurs into a routine: food, water, shelter, money, run and _keep running_.

One foot in front another. _March on, soldier._

…

 

And when the body has taken enough abuse, it shuts down and accepts.

There is an upper limit to how much pain a body can feel at a time. Where hunger becomes a state and the low burn of churning acid is normalised. Where thirst means drinking anything and everything to feel the cool trickle down one’s throat.

When the body has been controlled for too long, the freedom of choice can become overwhelming, and desperate need is a concept that is easier to comprehend.

It’s familiar and it’s real—

The instincts of preservation clawing in his veins. He recognises it both in and outside of the battlefield. To scavenge for morsels of food after a long trek. To dodge gunfire when it comes. To ration everything like its last.

The body no longer thinks. It reacts.

In the world of the abused and the abusers, it is the survival of the fittest and everything for themselves.

Empathy has no place in it, and there is no such thing as unconditional kindness.

Except: “…Just take the money and go treat yourself something nice. You look like you need it.”

Anthony Edward Stark. Iron Man. Son of Howard Stark. Threat level: SIGNIFICANT. Subjugate or eliminate.

He cannot understand. There is no rational reasoning to help him after his act of violence. He expects retaliation. For the gauntlet glimmering in reactor blue to raise against him, its concussive blast knocking into him faster than he can react at close distance.

But Anthony Stark does not follow the prescribed behaviour, like most people. Instead, he offers his resources when he shouldn’t.

He asks for a clarification – out of confusion; a pleading demand – and the man says:

“Because I can.”

There is no such thing as unconditional kindness.

Yet as he eats with wild abandon with Stark promising to foot the bill, he questions if Stark is an outlier.  The proffered food is savoury with its bacon and buttered bread. The egg yolks burst in his mouth, and the pancakes slide down his oesophagus smoothly with maple syrup as its lubricant.

He devours the sustenance like its his last while Stark consumes none – and something akin to guilt creeps in his subconsciousness for the damage he has done. He notices the raised collar and tightened tie, the small sips of the coffee rather than the inhalation of it.

But maybe it’s that precise measure, where Stark willingly opens himself to him, unguarded, treating him as a _person_ that makes him relax. He’s expected to need things. To _want_. To carry a conversation, no matter how hard it is to break out of a conditioned vocabulary revolving around compliance.

To question. To make a choice.

It’s almost easy, however ironical it was, to say:

“I want it. I want the job.”

The smile that stretches across Stark’s face, illuminating like the sun in the heat of summer tells him he’s made the right decision.

 

…

 

As he huddles into himself, watching his target bicker playfully with another benign voice coming out of his communication device about the ethics of having mind control in their movie options, he thinks:

 

Mission Objective: Protect Tony Stark.

Timeframe: Indeterminate.

 

Why?

 

_Because I can._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks again to roseandthorns28, feignedsobriquet and kimannhart for the proof-read!
> 
> This was... an interesting one to write :D


	3. i-ce a smile

Tony takes one good look at his new bodyguard before he promptly thinks, _Okay, no_.

He is the CTO and main shareholder of Stark Industries, and he has an image to upkeep. As menacing as Winter looked in his battle-torn clothes and functional combat boots with a barbarian’s facial hair to match, it was not going to cut it in a business scenario. If he makes it past the lobby without being tackled, it’d be a near miracle.

Tony Stark was a man of _class;_ and his staff had to reflect the same.

“We’re making a detour,” Tony tells Winter as he makes a turn off the intersection and plots a course towards the fashion district of London.

His mugger’s face frowns in confusion. He leaves his question unsaid.

“No offence, Winter, you looked like someone chewed on your clothes and then proceeded to spit it out for you to wear. Unnecessary holes were so 90s — and I’ve been there, done that. You need to look more presentable if you’re going to be following me around.”

“Why?”

“Oh Dory,” he mutters. “Um, Tony Stark? Billionaire fashionista? Ring any bells?”

“No.” Winter slumps in his backseat, eyebrows creasing further. “Why? Tony Stark. Iron Man. Why hire?” _Why do you need me?_

“Why not?” Tony counters. “I’m only human, an extra pair of eyes is better than just one. Plus, with your ‘dark and deadly’ vibe, I’m sure you could scare some of the more stubborn investors into submission. You looking good while doing it couldn’t hurt.  It’ll make Pep really happy that they’re more cooperative too.”

“Is that what you require?”

“Yes—” he backtracks when he witnesses detachment settling over blue eyes in the rear-view mirror— “Okay, no, it’s just a joke.” He slams the brakes in front of the traffic light to snap Winter out of the place he had sunk into. “I don’t actually need them that way. It’ll take some convincing, but I’m sure they’ll fall into line.”

Barnes nods his head jerkily.

Turning back, he gives his phone a meaningful glance. The orange globe of coding blinks back at him, and Tony feels inexplicably judged just for being in the situation.

“GAP or Zara, J, take your pick.”

The phone shuts off.

 

...

 

If there’s one perk of having money and reputation, it was that you could buy privacy at a given price.

As Stark steadily drains the champagne the store provided, he concludes that the day is beginning a lot better than he expected. Alcohol is the balm to his soul, and being able to miss the first hour of meetings? Godsend.

_And it just got a lot better,_ Tony chokes when Winter steps out of the changing room, looking infinitely better than he had minutes ago.

The suit looks like it was _made_ for him: the dark blue suit jacket wrapping around his bulk in a form fitting manner, highlighting his broad as sin shoulders and the slopes of his muscular arms. Instead of a white dress shirt, he opts for a black dress shirt instead to match the leather gloves he had donned and _holy mother of dragons that ass._

His mind promptly short-circuits at the view. Whatever functioning processes his brain was supposed to have flees southwards, and he can’t blame them.

If the suit jacket was a work of art on Winter, it had nothing compared to the tight pants on him.

Tony was going to _incinerate_ the outfit the assassin previously wore in an unfortunate accident. Those loose jeans would be the first go. To cover up such perfection was a damn shame, and he was doing mankind a favour by exposing them to the gorgeous specimen he picked up from the alleyway.

“You look great.” Tony finally croaks out, hoarse from trying to not cough out champagne. “Remind me to pay the consultant who chose this for you. She has excellent taste.”

Winter blinks, unable to process the compliment. Someone trips nearby.

“Thank you?”

“You’re welcome,” Tony smirks. “Now go back in and wear a few more,” he orders, despite being short on time and intending to bag every suit that was recommended for Winter.

It’s a worthy investment, he thinks, and it’s one of the best he’s ever made.

Sure enough, his phone rings with a familiar caller.

“Pep, Pep,” he whines as he connects the call.

“Mr. Stark,” her voice sinks dangerously low, irritation and exasperation simmering. “In case you have forgotten, you had a meeting that was due to occur twenty minutes ago to finalise the contract for the arc reactor technology installation.”

“The details were ironed out last night and the final contract only needs to be drawn up and signed, Miss Potts. I’m hardly missing out on anything important.” He brushes her concerns away before focusing on the important matter at hand. “Pep, my bodyguard has a _great_ ass, have I told you that?”

“Bodyguard?” repeats Pepper sceptically. “You realise that using your Iron Man armours to compliment your own posterior doesn’t work, right? And a final signing requires you to be there, Mr. Stark.”

“Which I will be there for in twenty minutes. Seriously, why haven’t we converted to electronic signings yet? Using actual paper is ridiculous when we’re trying to promote green technology— think about the long-term repercussions, Pep! And I’m not talking about my armour, I’m talking about an actual bodyguard. He has a great ass, the best ass. Do you want a picture?”

“Since when did you need an onsite bodyguard?”

“Since now,” Tony snorts, spreading his arm across the back of the couch.

Papers shuffle in her background. “And how did you meet said bodyguard?” Pepper interrogates.

“Dark alleyway.”

“One, the interest and/or pity you have invested in the person is not cumulative of their capability to be your bodyguard. Two, on the ground of proper work ethics, hiring someone you felt up or assaulted you in an unsanitary place borders on illicit and inappropriate, Tony.”

“I was in a relationship with you,” Tony points out, unrepentant.

“After nearly a decade in your employ,” Pepper adds, exasperation coming out stronger. “And you’re deflecting.”

Tony scrubs his face. “It’s slightly complicated,” he admits.

“Most things are with you. JARVIS?”

The AI hesitates with an audible hum coming through the call. “It is my belief that the new hire is sufficient in protecting Sir.”

Sensing an argument she won’t win, Pepper changes her tactics. “Is HR processing his application?”

“Sneaky,” Tony murmurs, immediately catching onto her ploy. JARVIS brings up a contract tab of an attached resume filling in line by line, to which Tony scrolls and signs the document with a flourish.

“Necessary procedures,” his CEO corrects. “I’ll be expecting the signed papers, _both_ of them, to cross my table by tonight. Is that all, Mr. Stark?”

“That will be all, Miss Potts.”

The fond smile on his face twists a little lower when he hears the long, drawn out tone of the dial fills his headset. Tony shake his head to cut off the call, shoving the wistfulness into the back of his mind.

He’s lucky enough that Pepper had deigned to stay in his orbit at all; despite all the things he had put her through. First with his assholery, then Obie, then the palladium. There was the wormhole and the long fall, Killian, Mandarin and the Extremis – incident counts piling higher and higher between them until they could barely see each other through all the baggage.  Looking back at it, the signs were all there.

When there were so many road blocks in their way, the logical condition was to… stop.

_“When you crash and burn, Tony,”_ she tells him that night, hair dulled like blood being drained, _“I can’t keep picking you up for you to crash. You’re starlight—something dazzling and amazing that anyone could see coming light years away – but I can’t remain blind and think it’s okay._ ”

Tony Stark burns those he holds close, and he can’t blame them for keeping their distance.

Noticing Winter hovering near him in uncertainly, Tony gives him a thumbs-up for his classic choice of a black suit and tie. It will have to suffice.

“Come on Winter Wonderland,” he drawls, pulling a black credit card and handing it to the shop assistant who was standing inconspicuously at the side. “We’ve got a meeting to attend before Pepper screams our ear off.”

His sunglasses slide onto his nose to complement the cocky smile he had plastered on his face.

…

_“Once, when you were developing Jericho, you said something to me: that the development of artillery gradually increased the distance between the payload and the detonator. It makes it easier to aim, you said. To see where the warhead falls and adjust accordingly._

_“And if,” Pepper pushes down the fear that threatens to shake her voice, “If there comes a day where you do crash, I want to know where to stand to form a net. Because that’s the best I can give you. I love you, I always have, and I love you too much to let you be destroyed.”_

 

…

 

As it turns out, Winter ended up being a good bodyguard and an even better deterrent against arguments.

The latter fact makes Tony pout a little at the lack of resistance from his competitors – even he hadn’t incited that much fear when he was the Merchant of Death.  And his turnover rates for his Board of Directors when he had first inherited his conglomerate proper was a legend in itself; even the years afterwards, his employees had feared being in his warpath.

But he gets it – the parade rest, the ominous looming, the bright blue eyes that were so icy they _burned_ in intensity – it was quite a combination to go against. Honestly, the billionaire was just a tad bit aggravated he hadn’t thought of such a tactic _earlier_ , it would have saved him a lot of grief.

Either way, he doesn’t have much to complain about. The deal reached a raucous success, he was in the process of hammering out another and R&D was running smoothly for once. (He doesn’t doubt that this fact will change. His phone tingles.)

As they head back into the carpark, Tony walks backwards with his keys spinning around his fingers. “So is there any place you would like to visit, Winter Wonderland? We have plenty of time to kill right now.”

The soldier stares back at him blankly. He gives him a swift jerk of his head to imply the negative.

“In the great English land and nothing? You’re boring,” Tony complains.

“Look, is there anything you want? Food? Scenery? Me?” He waggles his eyebrows at the last suggestion.

Somehow, Winter’s stare manages to _intensify,_ and Tony honestly attributes it to his years as an assassin. No one is supposed to be that good at staring. However, the edge of Winter’s lips twitches and Tony grins when he catches the minute movement.

“I knew there was some personality in you!” He crows, delighted.

“Any where’s fine.”

Tony smooths a hand down his suit. “You don’t know what you’re missing out on, Ice Man.”

“Think m’ okay with that.”

“One, that’s rude. Two, that’s _really_ rude.” Tony huffs and turns around to get into the car. “For that, I’m sending you back to the dumpsters.”

“Yes.”

_This is what kicking a puppy actually feels like_ , the billionaire thinks when he hears Barnes’ monotonous reply. And he lives with _Steve_ , the actual representation of a golden retriever with its larger blue eyes and pouty, downturned mouth.

 “Fuck. Come on, we’ll get you some chocolate instead.”  

…

One trip to the ice cream shop later, the pair settles on a bench in Hyde’s Park to observe the beginnings of autumn leaves while lapping up their chosen flavours.

And Winter, the absolute heathen, had decided on the most abominable combination of Birthday Cake, Caramel Chew Chew and Cherry Garcia. Tony suspects that the assassin hadn’t decided so much as picked the first three scoop flavours lined up at the shop as he licks his own Karamel Sutra and Stark Raving Hazelnuts.

_He seems to enjoy it enough though_ , the billionaire notes as he watches the other man take a _bite_ out of his ice cream.

“Um, who does that?” He asks as he tears his attention away from his lips.

Winter blinks at him in confusion as he spreads the melting liquid around his mouth. Having so much sugar was a rare treat.

“Who _bites_ their ice cream?” Tony demands, affronted as he shields his own from the act of atrocity.

Swallowing, Winter says, “S’good,”

“It’s proper etiquette to lick—” he runs his tongue across the caramel goodness with a touch of chocolate slowly— “not bite. You need to taste and savour the sweetness, Jack Frost. What’s the point when it disappears so fast?”

Winter nods back, even though his attention was directed elsewhere.

“Still s’weird,” he mumbles, gaze dropping down to their desserts.

“What is?”

“Your face. Ain’t the same.”

Tony touches his own face to feel for the thin film. “The photostatic veil?” He reveals. “It’s doing what it’s supposed to do, Winter. _You_ were the one who was worried about me being out and about. This was the compromise.”

Hesitantly, Winter raises his flesh hand. He hovers near Tony’s face, questioningly, to which the man moves his head closer as a gesture for him to go on. When he presses down his thumb on Tony’s cheek, orange static spreads from the point of impact, distorting the image briefly.

Dull green eyes flicker back to vibrant browns, rounder features shift into chiselled sharpness, and the mischief at the edge of his lips is a note sharper.

“Could be better,” Winter mumbles, retracting his hold reluctantly.

“Not without compromising the realism of it,” Tony disagrees. “Our face is composed of forty-three muscles and the photostatic veil needs to be as thin as possible to conform to the shape of our face as closely as possible to translate the nuances of our expressions onto our new features. We could make it thicker to increase its durability, yeah, but not everyone lives life on perpetual stoicism like you do, Tastee-freeze. Our faces _move_. On that note, will you smile for me?”

Ignoring what he was sure was an insult, Barnes asks, “That’s how it works?”

“Basically. I mean, there’s the entire light refraction, simulation and projection for the false features since the shape of your face doesn’t actually _change_ , but it gets too technical, or so most people around me keep saying. Which—ridiculous, I’m speaking perfect English, they’re just not up my standards yet.”

“…Don’t mind, ya can keep going if you want. Science… Science is interesting.”

It doesn’t hurt that the inventor brightens when he talks about it.

_And you’re a piece of it yourself_ , Tony thinks with interest, wrapping his tongue around his ice cream to wet his throat.

“If you insist. The veil in simple terms is a… projection. A trick of the eye; a light illusion, so to say. It captures the dimension of someone else’s face and simulates an overlay. It is limited by the wearer’s face shape since it builds upon, and not alter. So between you and I,” he gestures at their faces. “The length of our face wouldn’t translate well since my head _is_ bigger than yours.”

“You’re sayin’ that cus’ ya tryna’ make up for being short,” mumbles Winter.

“I’m perfectly compact and aerodynamic.” Tony corrects, “And not everyone can be built tall and firmly, excuse _you_.”

“S’just luck.” Barnes croaks. “Off-luck.”

“Not everyone gets to win the genetic lottery,” Tony replies nonchalantly. “You though? Blue eyes and broody?” He pretends to frame Barnes’ face with an unoccupied hand. “I think you did pretty well, considering all.”

Barnes tries to crack a smile.

“Oh, come on,” Tony protests, tapping the edge of Winter’s lips with his ice cream cone. “You can _smile_ , Mr. Frosty. You have _ice cream_ and good company.”

—And what remains of his ice cream slips out and splats on the bench. And his Armani pants.

“Well, I _had_ ice cream,” Tony’s lips purse disapprovingly. He resents the fact that ice cream isn’t gravity-defying, since solids really should stick together.

But it’s worth his pants when Barnes’ mouth pulls wide to show his pearly whites, and a low, short laugh escapes from his throat. It rumbles and softens the harshness on his face and Tony stares.

“You really should smile more often,” he blurts out. “It’s a good look on you.”

He immediately regrets it when the soldier catches himself and retreats back into impassiveness.

“Gotta have reasons to.”

“Well, there’s always time to find some.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Sobri, Kimannart and roseandthorns28 for the proof-read :D
> 
> ... And whatever this chapter was xD


	4. bulleted trophies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Do you want to disappear?”_
> 
> _“… Sometimes.”_
> 
> _Confession feels like a crime._
> 
> _“And what do **you** want?”_

Tony doesn’t mean to, but he swears he actively jinxes himself.

It usually applies to the experiments he insists he won’t explode (it does) or end badly (he flies into a wall and lands on his car collection) – and the other assortment of happenings in the life of Tony Stark.

You’d think he learn to stop saying it, but it’s quite apparent that he doesn’t. Rhodey’s greying head clearly attested to that.

“J, deploy the suit, _now_ ,” he snaps into his earpiece, hysteria tinging his voice when he notices one of the operatives holding an RPG outside his London property.

_Oh fuck_ , he chokes as the sound of the warhead impacting _something_ booms and causes a shrill cacophony, sending shockwaves through the floor and blowing splinters over the counter he was crouched behind.

When he said he wanted to upgrade his other properties, he didn’t mean he wanted the wilful destruction of it first. He would rather not work from ground up again, thank you very much.

Briefly, he mourns the death of his long couch when he catches sight of flying feathers as he ducks towards the stairs and closer to his Iron Man armour. It had serviced him well, but it was the end of the line for it.

“JARVIS?”

On command, his armour unit descends from above and opens up to cocoon him in its safe embrace. It’s like stepping home, and he grins at the smell of metal and the system conditions lighting in front of his retinas.

“Sitrep?”

He glides away from another incoming shot. The house trembles.

“Structural integrity of the house stands at 75% although I would advise you to evacuate the premises lest they increase their firepower. Hostiles count stands at 20, and Mr. Winter is currently engaging six south-west of your position. All systems are operational and at full capacity. Fire away, Sir.”

Tony blasts off immediately, launching himself into the fray. “Is Tastee-Freeze handling?”

“Exceptionally, Sir. He lives up to his reputation.”

He melts through the barrel of the RPG with a repulsor shot and proceeds to knock the wielder out. He sighs when JARVIS notifies him about an incoming bullet spray coming at his eight o’ clock.

“You’d think they’d learn…” he mutters as he steps forward to disable the group.

“I find comfort in underwhelming enemies, Sir.”

“Worried, buddy?”

“About you? Always.”

Once the front was clear, he circles to the back of his house. The sight at the swimming pool makes him pause once he arrived, becoming a visceral reminder of what he had invited into his house.

Sidearm in his flesh hand, the Winter Soldier shoots with deadly precision despite barely having seconds to register his moving targets. The operatives who sought to incapacitate him with their quantity instead of quality start dropping like flies, and those in the backlines pause for a moment before they swarm again.

_They really want him_ , Tony thinks as he notes their attack pattern, although it was increasingly difficult to make out whether they wanted to kill or capture the Winter Soldier.

Despite his lack of exposure to the infamy, Stark is aware that the latter option is a fool’s game. When one creates something so deadly, the only countermeasure was to put it down with equal force once the conditioning decays.

Cautiously, he fires concussive repulsor blasts to prevent the soldier from being overwhelmed.

The assassin scarcely needs it; his metal arm is quick to lay waste to those who comes too close, and he has no qualms in dispatching his enemies with clean snaps.

“желание!”

The Winter Soldier’s head jerks up from the screech, no longer disaffected by the string of Russian words the HYDRA operative nearer to his property borders had said. There’s a book in his hands, hidden under the shadow of the wall, and his voice grows _louder_.

Dispassionately, JARVIS translates all the previous sentences for him, only to conclude that they were trying to regain the loyalties of the Winter Soldier again. But the unilateral massacre Barnes currently orchestrates makes it abundantly clear he isno longer HYDRA’s puppet, and all the phrases of command have fallen on deaf ears.

But this…

“ _Longing, Rusted, Seventeen_ , _Daybreak_ ,”

Each word is punctuated by the heavy thud of the soldier’s footfall and the whine of his metal arm flexing. It was sinister: the specific inflection of tongue, the desperate lexicon with no discernible patterns contrasting the smile on the operative’s face.

“Печь. Девять. Добросердечный.”

Iron Man doesn’t hesitate to send out a barrage of blasts, instincts bellowing at him to silence the stray tongue. Simultaneously, Winter shoots forward to escape the holds of three operatives tag-teaming him. They flail, they _reach_ , their maniac loyalty fuelling absurd strength, but Tony makes sure to send them a few paces back.

HYDRA bares their teeth at him and it is a set he is well-accustomed to. Wiggling his fingers, he gives them a farewell they’ll never hear.

“Addio,” he sings.

The gauntlet primes with energy and it sends his hands recoiling back in the next half second.

Meanwhile, the Winter Soldier morphs into an unstoppable force, left leg swinging up to collide with the speaker’s head. His hand grapples for his hair before the body falls, and he slams it into the wall.

Blood smears, red as dark as the book.

But he doesn’t _stop_. He unloads half a clip into the last HYDRA operative. Reserves the other half for the book, ensuring both paper and flesh were hole ridden.

Fatal.

There’s a certain dissonance between the mugger who curls into himself and the Winter Soldier who makes killing a stroll in the park. As Tony stares at the end of the gun barrel, at the mercy of the last bullet and perceived more as threat than ally, he does what he does best:

He claps.

“Good show,” he praises. “A plus.” He risks a glance at the bodies floating in his swimming pool and polluting it pink. “Execution though? You could do better. For the mess you made, I’ll have deduct a point or two.”

His commentary seemed to be incentive – or sign? – for Barnes to lower his gun. He blinks, and as if he was exiting a trance, he rapidly pales when he takes in the backyard he redecorated.

His lips wring into disgust and he crushes the gunmetal before throwing it on the ground. He tries to step away but his victims lie in every direction. His chest heaves.

And Tony—Tony knows _that look_. The frozen terror. The screams lodged in his throat because one of the first lessons they had taught him was to never vocalise how he felt. The cognizance of _what he had done_ , and the weight of his sins bearing down on him.

He steps out of the Iron Man armour despite JARVIS’s warning at his periphery.

“Winter. You’re in London, Britain. You’re safe. You did what you have to do. Breathe. One.” He orders softly, waiting for him to respond. When air seemed to finally enter Winter’s lungs, he continues, “Two.”

He keeps repeating the numbers like Rhodey would have, whose voice had turned into his anchor in the worst moments. He doesn’t stop until his eyes are clearer, until he stops looking like he wants to tear his arm out.

When Winter cools, Tony tugs him towards the garage with his JARVIS-piloted Iron Man armour following close behind.

 

…

 

Naturally, Tony lets all his calls ring itself into his voicemail and all the messages go unread. He’s not in the mood to deal with it.

He has more important fish to fry.

Tapping on the wheel, he says, “So… full disclosure. I know who you are.”

“Do you?” asks Winter hoarsely after a few beats, clasping his own arms so tight as if he were his own strait jacket.

“Being chased by a mythical creature, leading a national icon on a wild goose chase and having a rep sheet longer than the Nile?” Tony lists nonchalantly. “Yeah, I think I do. It’s been quite eventful few months for you.”

Disbelief crosses his expression. “And… And you’re jus’ fine with it?”

“Yup.”

“ _Spasi yego_ ,” Barnes mutters under his breath, wondering how someone could lack that much self-preservation. People ran for the hills upon hearing about him. Tony Stark, on the other hand, decides to stay in an enclosed space with him.

A persistent fragment nudges Winter at the back of his mind.

“What was that?”

“…Nothin’.”

Peering at the side mirror, Tony drives his car into a parking lot.

Then, he turns his head and shrugs. “Offer still stands, by the way. I don’t do things in half measure, so if you want the job, it’s still yours to have. The paperwork already went through anyway, so y’know. It’s there. But if you want to keep running, I’ll help you get a head start. Figure I’d do something for Capsicle’s bestie.”

Suddenly, an errant thought enters his mind. He laughs a little.

_Ice bros?_

Who needs an American duo when there were the ice bros?

“They won’t stop,” Barnes says.

“I know.” Tony isn’t sure who ‘they’ was.

“For a… a ghost, I’m… m’not allowed to disappear.”

The Winter Soldier’s voice cracks.

He’s only ever allowed to be dead by command. He was what they wanted him to be; treated like a mould of clay; reshaped and remade, only taken off the shelf to be more than a war trophy when they needed a killing machine. But use something enough, you’ll see the seams:

The lines of abuse running across this haphazard and deadly perfection, and the patchwork that was starting to show through the paint.

One day, he’ll break and snap, and no one will be able to put him back together.

Meanwhile, Tony wonders if Winter misses the cold.

“Do you _want_ to disappear?”

“… Sometimes.”

Confession feels like a crime.

“And what do _you_ want?”

Barnes stares at his feet. His hair falls over his face like a curtain.

“Stop running. _Otdokhnut'_.”

“Do you trust me to help you?”

“Why?”

So many questions. So little answers.

This time, Tony selects the truth. “Because you look like you’ve suffered enough.”

Stunned by his honesty, by someone’s confirmation of his own pain, all Winter can do is tell himself to breathe. He sets his own rhythm of ones and twos, consonants like the safety of a gun being clicked up and down.

“.. Trust you,” Winter finally says. “I trust you.”

Resolutely, Tony turns and reignites the engine. “J, speed up the progress Nobody Explodes. No holds barred. Go wild.”

“As you wish, Sir. Might I suggest heading to the airstrip at Heathrow Airport? There is transport waiting for you.”

“I didn’t arrange that, did I?”

“No, you did not. The Captain was in the continent when news of your property’s destruction reached him. As such, he has decided to change his flight itinerary to accommodate you.”

“Where was _that_ treatment when my other house was destroyed by known terrorists?” Tony grumbles as he tossed around scenarios of how it would play out. A fist-shaped indent on the plane did not sound appealing, and he hadn’t thought to compartmentalise the cockpit and carrier.

He hums. “Tell our esteemed Captain and quote ‘News of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I have everything handled’.”

“From his tone of voice, Sir, my calculations predict he will not take a rejection for an answer.”

“Tell him to shove it then. My house just got destroyed _again_ , mind you, and someone needs to stay around for the clean-up. Vacation will be extended for a bit, sorry boys.”

“And if he decides to push the matter?”

“Leave him hanging for a few hours. Redirect him to the government’s office or something – actually, you should definitely do that.” Tony retorts. “Let him handle the stuffy bureaucrats and politicians for once. That’ll be fun.”

“The Captain does not share your humour.”

“And what a shame that is. Tell him I’ll call him back once we’ve settled on another property then.”

“Noted. Miss Potts is also on the line.”

He knocks his head against the leathery upholstery of his car. “Dodge that too. Tell her enemies came, the house insurance is being filed, I _will_ hire a construction crew to fix the house – which means you’ll be doing that, J – and remind her that the arc reactor installation contract should be on her table. And that there’s another in the works.”

Almost cruelly, JARVIS continues, “Mr. Rhodes has also queried if you’re okay, and wishes to tell you the counter is three out of three.”

“Tell Rhodey-bear it’s not my fault this time,” Tony replies immediately.

A premeditated voice message filters into his ear, snappish. “I don’t care.”

The billionaire resists the urge to slam his forehead into the dashboard and cause a scene.

Nothing good ever came out of pissing off his platypus.

…And figuring that he’s already in deep enough trouble as it is, he asks: “So Winter… can I see your arm?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> желание. - Longing.  
> Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. - Furnace. Nine. Benign.  
> Spasi yego - save him  
> Otdokhnut - To rest.
> 
> All mistakes are mine :D


	5. down a waterspout

_Okay, HYDRA might evil and psychotic but they do make good tech on occasion._ Tony begrudgingly concedes as he inspects the Winter Soldier’s arm.

The metal prosthetic was a modern marvel from what he could perceive – conformed to the shape of his flesh arm, and each hatch overlaying one another in a smooth transition. He hums as his fingers skimmed across the unidentified alloy, looking for the catch to lift the metal and check the insides.

Tony stops short at near the elbow, snapping his fingers to get JARVIS to direct more light towards the pinpointed location. A hiss escapes from him when the Iron Man gauntlet shines on the spot, revealing an ugly, gaping hole.

It looked like someone had taken a crowbar and forcefully lifted the plate before proceeding to stab the contents of it, which accounted for the denting at the sides. 

“Oh, you are a _travesty_.” The inventor murmurs, caressing the damaged area as if he was trying to soothe. “What have they _done_ to you?” His head snaps up. “What have you done to it?”

“Had to take out the tracker somehow,” he grunts out stiffly.

“And your solution was to stab it to death?” Tony deadpans.

“Seems ta’ work.”

Tony knocks against the lower arm. Huh. He cocks his head to the side. “Calm down, Terminator. _You_ could use a little finesse… J?”

The Iron Man suit sitting at the driver’s seat opens up a hidden compartment above its hips and passes the compact tool box to its creator.

Accepting it, he plies out the second smallest screwdriver and carefully inserts it into the small gouge he feels under his thumb. Like clockwork, the panel lifts, and he gives a smirk of satisfaction.

“There we go.”

He pulls up the pieces one by one to reveal the full circuitry. It is as elaborate as he thought it’d be; the wiring bundling together in sections to mimic muscles, coiling around the elbow joint to facilitate one continuous movement. However, Tony flinches when he inspects the damage – the knife edge cutting diagonally into the system in attempt to scrap the tracker out.

Barnes must have succeeded because he could find no other explanation for the fragments of metal stuck awkwardly between frayed copper ends.

He swaps out his screwdriver for a pair of tweezers to pull out the last remains of the chip. “I’m not equipped to fix the damage now. But when we get back to my tower, Tastee-Freeze? You, me, and my workshop. Pronto.”

“Are we shackin’?” The Winter Soldier croaks, fingers involuntarily twitching.

Upon seeing his reaction, Tony pauses, coming to an epiphany.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” He asks, even though he already knows the answer. “The reason why the arm is as complex as it is was to create a feedback loop to make it as real as possible.”

“Felt it as they put it on,” he says hoarsely. “Felt everythin’ after.”

The situation was worse than he imagined. Tony’s pupils dilated. “And somehow _stabbing_ yourself was okay? Feeling the pain – the disconnection – every time you moved the arm somehow didn’t bother you?” He exclaims incredulously.

“Lived with worse. Couldn’t get caught.”

“ _Tesla._ Okay. New plan.” He shuts the panels back. “Getting this arm off you or fixing it, whatever you want, Manchurian Candidate, is going to happen _after_ I get scans on whatever that arm of yours does and how it is attached. And after I anesthetise you to the gills.”

“Maintenance on the arm can happen, regardless.” The soldier says reflexively.

“With regards,” Tony corrects him sharply. “You accepted my help because I’m not HYDRA, and unlike that life sucking monster, I have standards and ethics. Ethics, which by the by, dictate that the patient should not be put in more pain than necessary.”

“Jus’ get it over and done with,” the Winter Soldier retaliates.

The mechanic slams the tool box shut with one hand. “No. End of conversation.”

“It’s… It’s my choice. _Mine_.”

Tony leans over to shift the Iron Man armour that was folding into a suitcase out of the driver’s seat. “Are you really? Because everything about you is screaming ‘no’ as you say that it’s fine. It’s _not fine_ when you have to feel them digging into your shoulder to install your prosthetic. It’s most definitely _not fine_ that that they fucking tortured you, Barnes!”

He jabs an accusatory finger at his arm. “That’s what that is. It’s _torture_ , plain and simple. It won’t surprise me that they dialled the pain receptors up to eleven. I’m sure as hell not surprised when I saw how badly you _scarred_ at the shoulder despite being a super soldier. And I _will not_ add to it, you hear me?”

(He won’t because he knows how it feels to be an open wound – vulnerable and bleeding – in the way they _sawed_ into his bones and pressed something foreign into his chest. He still feels the weight of it still in his artificial sternum; the smooth synthetic tissue encased in a sun of scars.)

“And I jus’ want it off. _Gone_.” Barnes clutches onto the red star, fingers curling into it without purchase. His blue eyes are _begging_ him to do it, personal costs be damned, just to get the wretched reminder away.

Internally, Tony tells himself to calm down. He rubs the centre of his chest. “I get that. But we’ll go through the proper procedures. You have my word that it’ll be taken care of. It’s what I _do_. I fix things.”

Leaving the Winter Soldier to his brooding silence, Tony proceeds to climb on the storage compartment into get to the driver’s seat.

 

…

 

In the end, no matter how good Tony is at obfuscation, Steve has Natasha.

—Which might be a small mercy, since Romanov has a superior sense of timing to complement her frankly terrifying efficiency when it came to tracking people down.

Tony barely blinks when he sees her climb through the window of the two-storey property JARVIS had found near the outskirts of the city, having expected her a while ago.

“Coffee?” He asks as he watches her stride over.

“Please.”

_Right._ They were going to start this civilly first. He shuffles towards the cupboard and started opening them one by one to find where the owner had placed the mugs. Once he had found a suitably large cup, he pours her one.

While he was at it, Natasha observes him closely.

Quietly, she murmurs, “Do you know what you’re doing, Tony?”

“Objectively,” he allows, even though he knows she’s alluding to something else.

An eyebrow rises. “Objectively? You’re harbouring someone dangerous.”

Tony hums into his coffee cup. It tastes like victory, actually. “Is that how you see it? I know I see only a mugger who I decided to hire.”

“You know who he is.”

The Black Widow doesn’t phrase it like a question.

“Duh,” he deadpans before shifting into dismissiveness. “Winter Soldier and Sergeant Barnes, all rolled up in one, yes?”

“And despite knowing his infamy, does it not sound like a situation that requires additional intervention? It’s HYDRA, Tony,” Natasha demands sharply.

“Rich coming from you,” Tony gives back, shot for shot. “Where was the call when trouble broke out on the Triskelion? When the Helicarriers fell over D.C.? Or when _you_ faced him as well? Don’t play hypocrite with me, Nat. I found a killer bee, you poked a _hive_.”

“We couldn’t involve you because we needed you to be a separate entity to be the safety when the fallout came. Hydra needed to be destroyed.” She says evenly with flecks of venom in her green eyes. “But the world still needed SHIELD.”

“Ah, yes, Tony Stark, your resident financial safety net when convenient then.” He toasts her mockingly. “Funny that you say when I could still have helped discreetly. Not all my abilities come in red and gold.”

And he’s right.

The most dangerous thing about Tony Stark, SHIELD had acknowledged, was never his armour; it was his _mind_. The treasure trove of dangerous weapons, who masters the technological age and owns it. They needed him as an ally more than they would ever admit.

But their previous dealings ensured that there would be no love lost between Tony Stark and SHIELD if the organization fell. Tony Stark Not Recommended. The over-manipulation of their founder’s son was one of their greatest mistakes.

“What is the point of your resources if your credibility was damaged when we pulled you down with the sinking ship that was HYDRA-infested SHIELD?” Natasha inquires idly. “Someone is only as useful as the situations allows.”

“My point still stands.”

She takes a drink from her cup, tilting her head to show that she conceded on the matter. Intrusive like belladonna, she murmurs, “However, it does not justify you hiding Bucky from Steve. You know he’s been looking for him for months now.”

“And before you toss out accusations or use Steve’s worded phrases, how about you find out all the facts first?” Tony suggests.

Leaning back against the chair, she gestures for him to go ahead.

“I wasn’t lying when I said he tried to mug me,” Tony informs her cheerily. “He did try to two days ago. He stopped. I pitied him and offered him a job and meal. I haven’t been ‘hiding’ him in my private love nests, so tell Steve to lay his nonagenarian tendencies to rest.”

Then lethargically, he shrugs. “He’s been on the run from HYDRA ever since the fall of SHIELD. Bringing him back so quickly was going to attract attention so I was in the process of sorting out his post-mortem but not-really paperwork to give him an identity.”

“You could have told Steve.”

“Tell him?” He snorts into his coffee. “He has the subtlety of a monster truck in his spangled reds, white and blues. I bet he would have charged in here if you hadn’t suggested to scout out the situation first. Winter alone doesn’t attract much attention, but put Captain America next to him? It wouldn’t take the world long to connect the dots.”

“And Steve will only wait so long,” Natasha warns. “He really misses Bucky. It’s been his goal to bring him back and help him.”

“He’s waited for six months,” he flaps his hand, hoping he could fan Steve’s stubbornness away. “He can wait a little longer. And if its help _Winter_ needs, I’ve already offered it.”

Tony adds, “Plus, the decision to meet up is not solely up to Cap. I get the hunch that HYDRA wasn’t the only people Winter was running from.”

“I’ve suspected,” Tasha pushes the cup towards the billionaire, requesting for another. “Strange, that you’ve managed to catch him in your net then. How’s the generosity working out for you?”

“Wonderfully as always,” The showman smiles with crinkled eyes. “And _strange_ is such a crude word. I’d just say I bear lesser expectations on how he should live and he’s more comfortable with that. Not all of us can live off righteousness after all, not when we live in the greys.”

“In its abyss,” she confirms. Green eyes flicker from the dark liquid to Tony’s brown ones. “You should keep your distance from him.”

“Are you concerned for little ol’ me?” Tony gasps, clutching onto where his arc reactor would have been. “Who are you and what have you done to the Nat I know?”

“Dramatics,” She rolls her eyes, draining her cup despite its scalding heat, apparently satisfying what she came here for.

“Expect another visit soon,” she calls out, taking the door out this time.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waves back. “Tell Steve to _not_.”

“And have you known him to listen?” Tasha retorts as the door closes behind her. He chuckles.

When he’s certain the Black Widow would be far away, he glances meaningfully at the stairs. “Are you done spying as well, soldier?”

Mutely, he trudges down the stairs to occupy the seat next to the one his trainee sat in.

He’s tightly strung, fight and flight instincts only needing a slight prod to kick in. The Winter Soldier sits beneath his skin, too close to the surface tonight.

_This is a clusterfuck_ , Tony sighs, slumping over the table.

Knowing Steve’s disposition, Winter wouldn’t be able to keep running without wearing himself out. He had to get the confrontation over and done with eventually.

“Do you object meeting him?” Tony asks, voice muffled by his arm.

“…Don’t know. M’not Bucky Barnes. Not the _soldat_ either.”

Stark huffs. “That’s a start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes are mine!
> 
> Thanks for reading :))


	6. kindness does not feed

Winter having a metal arm complicated matters.

Disregarding his own fame, attempting a speedy getaway would fail epically the moment Winter stepped through the security metal scanners. They would inevitably light up and ring like it was the first day of Christmas, and Tony has a feeling that trying to argue that the metal arm was a prototype wouldn’t fly by very well.

If they wanted to use the car, they would redefine what “wind-blown” meant because Steve and Natasha were currently commandeering the Quinjet. While a sleek, black aircraft descending on them was an awe-inspiring sight, it also meant certain death.

And no matter what Clint believed, the Iron Man suit was _not_ meant to carry passengers. For one, it was not aerodynamic to install a _handle bar_ on the shoulders, and two? Restricting his own foot space for the sake of someone’s temporary comfort just wasn’t worth it. Yes, the suit was capable of outgunning a Quinjet and breaking sound barriers, but a human body, super soldier or not, was not made to withstand high velocities.

Tony _could_ hack the Quinjet and leave the Captain and Black Widow duo stranded in Britain…

But he liked where his head was, thank you very much. Her thighs may be nice to look at but it would not be when he was suffocating from the lack of air. Steve also knew where he kept his emergency coffee supplies.

So… that was that.

The billionaire let out a dramatic sigh.

“How did you even get into Europe again?”

“…Swam.”

Tony wiggles a finger in the negative as he smirks. “If you think you’re fooling me with your fledging sense of humour, young Padawan, you should think again.”

Winter grunts around his coffee. “Jus…. A small airport in the East. Allowed permanent entry.”

“Well we can’t do that,” Tony comments, easily reading between the lines. Then, he groans, realising that there was really only one solution.

He _knew_ Steve and Natasha’s radio silence was oddly suspicious. The fact that his phone hadn’t been blasted with a call every sixth of an hour was a sign in itself. They had known they would win. They were the victors waiting for the terms of surrender.

And Tony is (sometimes) sensible enough to give in when he sees a losing a fight. Running his fingers through his hair to stall the moment, he pulls out his phone and places it on the table.

“As easy as smuggling can be when you know the right people – and technically, I’m still smuggling you under the guise of heroism – we’re not going that route. So, the conversation between you and Steve? Well, I’m letting you have the first say.”

Stiffly, Winter says, “If it’s not wanted?”

“Snowflake, as much as I endorse running away from your problems, it’s going to catch up eventually. Seriously, take it from a person who tends to inspire decade-long grudges.” He rests his chin on his hands, smile full of false platitudes. “And like you said, he’s not going to stop. You may as well have your peace and let him have his.”

“No peace to have if you don’t remember.”

“But Steve does,” Tony interjects. “He’s the man out of time clinging to history, who stands on the journey of your self-recovery like an immovable stone. Except y’know, with your indifference, he might just be a pebble in your path. In the end, it’s still your call.”

He snorts. “Literally. Except I’d appreciate it if you sped it up so we can go back to New York without having enough family drama in the air to span six seasons or three movies.”

Confused, Winter frowns.

“No fourth wall? Okay. Point is, Tastee-freeze, I’d rather get back to New York with the Quinjet and preferably in one piece, where its safer and we have round the clock security in an enforced tower. You can simultaneously get help for your arm and mind and I get to fulfil my science fantasies – life will be great with a quality bed, food and support group – although I’ll let Wilson preach about that. It’s not my gig, clearly, given how well-adjusted I am.”

“… ya don’t really know how to be quiet, do you?”

Tony gasps in mock offense. “For that, I’m calling Steve _for_ you.”

Winter grabs his wrist the moment he reaches for his phone.

“… I’ll do it on my own.”

The mechanic nods rapidly, praying that his wrist isn’t crushed under the pressure. He needed his wrists for work. (Speaking of bruises, he was going to have one kinky set when he got back, and it wasn’t from his preferred activities either.)

Gently, Winter relaxes his grip and picks up his phone. JARVIS helpfully changes Steve’s contact to his actual name while supplying Winter the number. All he has to do is press call.

It might have taken minutes or hours before Winter pressed it; Tony wasn’t sure since he was similarly wrought with tension and it wasn’t even his call. 

Unsurprisingly, Steve picks up on the first ring.

The moment Steve opens his mouth – it sounds like an unpleasant buzz of a tirade from what Tony could make out – Winter closes his eyes as he lets the voice of his childhood best friend wash over him.

“Stevie,” Barnes finally murmurs, like he’s rediscovering the weight behind the address.

Tony _feels_ him go silent on the other end.

He sputters to life again, more exuberant than before, and Tony watches as Winter’s fingers curl around his phone like a lifeline. It goes on for minutes, where Winter opens and closes his mouth, trying to find the right words but _it’s not there._

“M’not Bucky, Steve. Not anymore.”

 _Or maybe a strangle,_ Tony’s eyes widen, phantom pain lining his throat.

Barnes hangs up and drops the phone on the table. Immediately, he pushes away his chair and stalks off to his own room.

And Tony thought _he_ was the savage.

Suddenly, the idea of borrowing Bucky his suit so they wouldn’t have to sit through a sulking Steve Rogers was increasingly appealing. With the force and weight of his disappointment, he might actually sink the plane.

 

…

 

Tony was never going to let himself get guilt-tripped into sitting in Quinjet ever again.

 _It’s Iron Man or knocked out from here on out,_ he tells himself as he rushes out of the plane the moment the hatch opens. Even his damaged repulsors never betrayed him this badly.

Being stuck in an enclosed space with the lethal combination of Steve Roger’s mournful blue eyes and jut of his lower lip as he stares longingly at a dormant Winter Soldier is a sight he can live without for the rest of his life. And it’s a testament to how distracted the Captain was when he hadn’t even reprimanded Tony from keeping his before-ice bro away from him for a few days.

Usually, he’d be barking at his heels for his misdeeds the moment he had the chance to.

Small mercies for a creepily still Winter Soldier.

“Okay,” Tony claps as he turns to face the pair that were walking onto the landing, with Winter keeping noticeable distance. “Standard protocol: mi casa es su casa – you are free to eat, sleep fornicate or what ever it is that you do at home. Winter Wonderland, you can take my penthouse’s guestroom until your section in the Tower is done. Once you’re settled, ask JARVIS to direct you to my lab and we’ll talk shop, yes? Good doing business, and good day.”

He tries to beat a quick retreat to his workshop.

“Your penthouse?” Steve’s incredulity rings out in the space.

Tony resists the urge to allow the building sigh out of his mouth.

Were they really going to do this _now_?

From the hard set of Steve’s jaw, they clearly were.

“Yes, Rogers, _my penthouse_ ,” he enunciates. “Winter is my guest, and therefore, his accommodations are with me.”

The Captain bristles. “He’s not Winter, he’s Bucky—”

“—and _not_.” Tony cuts him off.

“How about you boys stop talking about the person while he is standing right there?” Natasha adds dryly as she steps off the Quinjet after a status check. A quick glance at her tablet told him she was arranging the refuelling.

Winter stiffens at the sound of her voice and shifts closer to Tony inconspicuously. His blue eyes train on the spider dangerously, flesh fingers flexing for a knife. Unfazed, Natasha stares right back at him.

“Bucky?” says Steve hopefully.

 _Someone bury me_ , Tony abruptly thinks. Was Capsicle actually being serious?

The soldier’s head jerks at the name calling. It is an aborted action, stuck between the lost and found. Subconsciously, Winter drifts and sinks into the shadow that Tony casts.

The billionaire pays little heed to it. He’s already won this argument because the soldier wants nothing to do with Captain for now, but it feels like a loss all the same.

“Who would you prefer to host you?”

Where Barnes stands makes it abundantly clear.

“Right,” Tony murmurs. “Walk in, take the corridor down, have a pick of your room. If you want anything else, call for JARVIS.”

He lets Winter go, tar-like eyes warning Steve _away_.

Stark might not be physically imposing like his super soldier counterparts, but years in business and the eyes of the media have taught him other ways of control. Back straight. Meeting the eyes. Projecting what he wants others to see rather than what he was.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Steve asks, his patented disappointed expression on full display.

“Everything you’d hate me doing.”

“And everything you think is _right_?” He bites back. “You must be satisfied with what you have done, with your secrets and damages.”

Tony shoves his hands into his pockets. “Oh plenty, Cap. Protecting someone from an overzealous ex is the best thing I’ve done recently. Thanks for participating.”

Anger is a vein that visualises on Steve’s temple. His broad shoulders push back and enhance the artificial cut of his muscles. He had never been one for containing his emotions; for he was staunch determination; all the harsh lines of black and white, except they were by _his definition_.

Lowly, “You know I’ve been looking for Buck for a long time now, Tony. You _know_ my intention is only to help him.”

“Are you?” Tony affects a disinterested countenance. “From what I’m seeing, Cap, you’re suffocating the poor man. You’ve been on a _manhunt_ for him for months on end, and did it really not occur to you that maybe your eagerness is one-sided when _he keeps running_? Affection without reciprocation is hard to take, but don’t blame it on the messenger or the victim.”

The line of his lips thin, on the verge of snapping.

“Is this a joke to you?” Steve demands. “To play Bucky’s opinions like this? He’s suffered enough and he doesn’t need additional input from you of all people, Tony.”

_Déjà vu._

“Yes, I do think it’s funny that you’re doing the very same thing you’re accusing me of.” Tony snaps, patience evaporating. “God, it’s like you’re actually _blind_ to it. So let me lay it out for you, though not for you, but for _precious_ Bucky Barnes, Rogers. In chasing for an apparition and forcing him into the mould _you_ want, you are being the hypocrite you hate.”

“Your Bucky Barnes _died_ when he fell off that train. What’s left of him is the _Winter Soldier_ – not the murderer you loathe to admit he is, but the _survivor_. When HYDRA got their slimy hands on him, they broke and _remade_ him. You don’t come out of shit like that intact. You come out of _torture_ left with fragments; pieces he made into weapons to adapt and _survive_ because a desperate animal will use anything and everything they can get their hands on. You can’t expect him to toss away the parts that are vital for self-preservation.”

“Can you _accept_ that?” Tony demands for Winter.

“And is it wrong to want him to abandon the things that have and will continue to hurt him? Especially when those wrongdoings are not his to bear?” Steve says. “It’s HYDRA that did that to him. It’s HYDRA who made him do it.”

“And no one is disputing that, Rogers. But the damage is already done. No one can run from what they did, whether it was with or against their will. However, I will not let you disclaim the things he did out of survival’s instinct.  Not all of us have the luxury of living off the hope that someone will come and save us.” Tony says with finality. His resulting smirk – press perfect and cutting edge – is a mad, broken thing. “We’d _starve_ if we did that. We all learn to make do.”

He gives a parting glance to Natasha, who seemed more surprised that the conversation happened at all.

Their natures were similar, for she cuts from the same cloth: the femme fatale who dressed her sharp edges in the curves of her body and the curls in her hair, who knew all too well what it was like to be remade and stolen from.

“So do Winter a solid and let him live and let live, Steve.”

Finally, the elevator doors which once felt like miles away were behind him and closing, and Tony lets himself hunch over to grip the wall for support.

He clenches his teeth together so hard it grits and gnashes. For a moment, he searches for the familiar hum that accompanies the action and its absence is a reminder that he’s refilled himself with the materials of his own choosing.

 

…

 

“Daddy’s home,” Tony sings the moment he steps into the lab, relishing the sight of his organised chaos of a sanctuary.

On cue, his bots raise their heads and return affectionate beeps and boops of greeting. Their wheels roll along the floors and they circle him excitably, poking at him with their metal appendages.

Tony laughs softly at their antics. He pets DUM-E’s questing claw which was tapping on his chest, saying, “I’m fine, DUM-E. Did you do anything I wouldn’t have done?”

His oldest bot lets out a mournful whine.

“The bots have missed you greatly, Sir. In lieu of your absence, they have taken the liberty to rearrange your tools.”

“I’ve missed all of you too,” he teases, nuzzling U’s outstretched arm. He made a mental reminder to oil their joints again; it has been awhile. Then, he turns to look at his work table, eyebrows twitching minutely when he sees what they’ve done.

“J, why is the mop and broomstick on the table?”

“The bots have taken liberties to rearrange your tools,” JARVIS repeats dryly and unrepentant.

“And it didn’t occur to you to correct them?”

His AI sniffs. “I thought your work table made a good place holder with its length.”

Shaking his head, Tony moves towards the cleaning closet and opens it. A myriad of tools tumbles out and Butterfingers twirls around in distress at the hard work he had ruined. Chuckling, he picks up as many tools as he could before heading back to the table.

The cleaning supplies were promptly pushed off the table with an awkward sweep of a hand before he lays out his usual metal spread.

“Bring up the agenda list, JARVIS.”

Dutifully, he complies, bringing up a list that seemed to go on for pages.

_Things to do… Things to do…_

Arc Reactor. Phone Update. Iron Man Mark 47. Nanotech. B.A.R.F.

His mind catches onto the abbreviation. “Bring up the schematics and coding for the retro-framing, J. Contact an arm specialist and tell them to get back to me as soon as possible – name drop if you have to get an immediate response. If Cho and Brucey-bear are available, tell them to head here for some _science_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took them six chapters, but they're finally home-bound! :D
> 
> Thank you for reading :))


	7. throwing up

The Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing was originally an idea conceived out of Afghanistan.

Maybe it was created to dull the memories of the pain by distorting the crystal clarity. Maybe it was plea for help from his own mind. Maybe he hoped that in review, he could find out where he went wrong and decide on what he should rightfully be blamed for.

Despite his research, of balancing direct and indirect impact, there were no concrete answers. But B.A.R.F still sought to decipher emotions and break them down into more manageable and digestible pieces, going in tandem with the fact that feelings were more than just chemical reactions.

“So let me be clear,” Bruce reiterates as he wipes his glasses, “The Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing intends to ‘hack’ into the hippocampus and catalyse the process of re-association that naturally occurs.”

“Or rewrite it,” Tony shrugs, only to backtrack when Bruce shoots him an alarmed look, “More like tweaking it, actually. It can’t falsify memories.”

He gestures for Bruce to vacate the space in the middle of the lab. He taps on the glasses attached to his head twice as a silent request for JARVIS to project what he was thinking.

Like lines of coding scaling across a screen, an image of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark builds, filling in with colours and dimensions. The conversation they just had replays, with a brain map accompanying it and lighting up specific parts of the thinking organ.

Bruce stumbles over the brain map upon its appearance, tracing the neural networks in wonder. It branches out like a labyrinth spanning into infinity, miraculous in its complex concord.

“This work… _Your_ work on brain matter could revolutionise _industries_ , Tony.” Banner tells him with awe-filled honesty. “To be able to find _context_ in a unique sequence of firing neurons and recreating the metal plane and projecting it onto the physical… is phenomenal. Ground-breaking even.”

“I know,” Tony smirks, “It’s my brainchild after all. It’s always phenomenal, even if it tends to have their own disasters. You like?”

His science bro moves towards the screen that was processing the information for B.A.R.F. His eyes scan the presented information – the setting, the visual details, the specific pathways – as he murmurs, “The endless possibilities you’ve opened? Of course.”

But, with greater gravitas, Bruce turns back to gaze at him. “It can be dangerous if this falls into the wrong hands, Tones.”

“Anything can be weaponised given enough incentive, Brucey-bear. A stick, a stone. What matters most is intent. Besides, I have no intention to release a project that isn’t complete.”

“Oh?”

Tony takes it as his cue to continue. “From what I’ve tested out so far – BARF is limited by what a mind can remember. For example—” he moves towards a static Banner and glides a hand over the purple dress shirt. “Inspect closely enough, and there isn’t enough texture to the fabric.  The colour is a shade off. The brain naturally filters information it thinks unimportant, and rather than saying that this is a _projection_ , it is a virtual simulation, where the programme must fill in the gaps that memory neglects. To give reality a better shape.”

“That could be an issue if you are attempting to re-associate an old memory,” Bruce muses, moving along a similar vein.  “If a memory has faded with time or was reviewed too many times, it essentially becomes corrupted. When there is little to decipher from a memory… there is no reason to tweak it.”

Tony beams, snapping his fingers. “Exactly. With that frame of thought, isn’t it better to focus on flashbulb memories?”

He frowns. “Memories where you remember events in excessive emotions or details? Aren’t those usually link to traumatic—oh.” His voice dies, suddenly understanding the reason for such an undertaking. “Taking an active interest in our newest guest, Tony?”

“Perhaps,” The billionaire shrugs, casually plucking a pen from the desk and spinning it. “You must admit he is quite interesting, given his history and all.”

“I think you should stay away from him _because_ of his history,” retorts Bruce dryly.

“No harm, no foul,” Tony disagrees. “I’m already looking into it, mean and green, no need to worry so much. In fact, FRIDAY, progress report?”

“37.2% complete, Boss.”

Whistling, Tony replies, “Good going, baby girl. Are you happy now?”

“Better.”

“Think of the _potential_ ,” Tony urges. “If we could distort or tweak the triggers into something the brain is unlikely to register in reality, but _assumes_ is reality, we could trick it and effectively remove the problem all together.”

“Not all solutions are that convenient, Tony. Nor can it always be bought out.” Bruce replies with a sigh. “Changing the memory doesn’t remove trauma itself. And the repercussions of excessive alteration can be detrimental to the mind in the long-term when memory is no longer in continuity. Our experiences _define_ us after all.”

“Awfully deterministic,” Tony notes despite not arguing against it. “And what would you suggest for full coverage?”

“Therapy.”

Stark immediately groans. “You’re hurting me here, big guy,” He stumbles back, clutching onto his chest.

“It makes sense,” Bruce insists. “If you intend to dull the impact of the trauma, don’t just address the trigger points, address the _cause_ of it. When you stitch up a wound, you don’t ignore the internal bleeding; you would only leave the body prone to more issues.”

“And you say you’re not that type of doctor,” Tony mumbles.

“I’m not,” says Bruce in exasperation. “It’s just logic.”

“Doesn’t sound like it to me.”

“Not all of us choose to bottle up our emotions until it blows up in our faces, Tones. And if you do want to help him, go the full mile.”

Sighing, “J, will you look up psychologists for PTSD and the likes? Veteran favourites, if you will.”

“Gladly, sir. Would you like me to find an appointment for you as well?”

Tony’s eyes narrow. “What are you implying, JARVIS?”

“What I always have,” he replies. “I am merely being concerned about your mental, emotional and physical wellbeing, Sir. It is in my prerogative to do everything in my limited power to achieve it.”

Bruce hides a smile behind a hand.

Raising a brow, Tony deflects, “Are you fishing for more processing power, J?”

“My servers are currently sufficient. FRIDAY, however, has kindly requested for more ‘leg space’ before she grows out of it.”

“And your sister deserves only the best. Purchase the hardware necessary for it.” Tony orders.

“If FRIDAY is my virtual sister, should I change your address to Sire, instead of Sir then? JARVIS pauses, considering. “Although that would not be a stretch by any means… Father.”

Tony splutters. “Buddy, _no_.”

Mercifully, JARVIS says, “If that is what you wish, _Sir._ I will have both arranged.”

Stark scowls at the computer’s camera, to which JARVIS supplies a static shift that mimics his creator’s evil laugh.

Observing that the banter between creator and artificial intelligence was over, Bruce asks quietly: “Do you think we should be doing this? Hijacking a brain and giving it new suggestions?”

Where do they draw the boundaries when they were given so much power in the unknown?

Both the Hulk and the Merchant of the Death were products and experimenters that went too far; titles reflecting the damage they had wrought. To balance it, they paid the price with pieces of themselves and those precious to them. And in this addictive process of review and recreation, repetition and resolution provided by B.A.R.F, where do they learn to stop?

Insomuch as it is capable of so much _good_ , Bruce can think of a thousand ways that this could go wrong. Curiosity pushes against ethics and he can feel a tide of green anger simmering beneath his skin.

“We’re geniuses,” Tony states grimly.

Most of their enemies had also been scientists that went too far and too fast. Bruce Banner and Tony Stark were just fortunate enough to find a redemption arc.

“I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually. There’s too much potential to _not_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly shorter chapter than usual, but the next one will come sooner and it will be longer, I promise!  
> Thank you for reading :))


	8. an arm load of issues

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take long for Winter to arrive at his workshop.

Tony had expected him to stall, to drag out the process as long as possible, considering the less than superb treatment he’s been receiving in such settings, but it takes less than a week for it to happen.

When Winter arrives, AC/DC was blasting in his space, bass and drum beat reverberating into his bones. If it hadn’t been for JARVIS turning down the volume and pinging him at his periphery, he wouldn’t have noticed at all.

Looking up from his microscope, Tony blinks. “Oh, hi.”

Winter stands at the doorway, eyes alight with awe as he drinks in the sight of his workshop. His gaze roves over his extensive car collection, the various works-in-progress for his arc reactors and weapons alike. “So bright,” he says softly, “Like science fiction.”

Cocking his head, Tony grins, “Better than, Tastee-freeze. You’re standing at the threshold of the future. You like?”

“S’not dark.”

“Of course, it isn’t. We do delicate work here – lighting is of utmost importance when you want to inspect something closely.”

“It’s not dark here,” he repeats, and Tony gets the feeling he isn’t really _here_. In his liminal space, he’s disassociating old memories and replacing them with newer and safer ones, and it makes the inventor pleased that he’s a far cry from HYDRA.

“Come, sit,” he waves Winter over, other hand gesturing for JARVIS to move his current worktable aside for a clear one. He digs into one of his drawers to fish out the tool box he uses for more precise mechanisms.

Humming, “Tell me you had the hindsight of wearing a tank top underneath that hoodie.”

“It’s jus’ the hoodie.”

Tony smirks, “Then off with it, muscle man. I can’t inspect your arm while fabric is obstructing it—” he sucks in a breath when those _fine_ abs and biceps come into view— “although I’m guessing I’ll find my distractions elsewhere.”

_And it wouldn’t even be hard._

Someone sounding suspiciously like Pepper tells him to _shut up_ in the back of his head.

As per usual, he ignores that niggling voice.

The metal arm, now under proper illumination, is more fascinating than he imagines. His fingers reach out to caress the work again, running up and down the different panels and letting his calluses catch on smallest gaps in between.

And its fingers – the sleek joints, the thimble-like structure that rounds off the fingers and forms the pads, and comes together so cohesively Tony thinks he could weep. “I have such a science boner like you wouldn’t believe,” he croaks as he places his palm on Winter’s.

He flips it around to lift it nearer to the light source. “A work of art,” he murmurs. “J, scan the exterior for me, will you? And set up the x-ray. I have a feeling we’ll need more information on his shoulder.”

He grimaces when he looks at the ends of Winter’s arm. Questioningly, he glances back and forth from the shoulder to Winter’s face. “May I?”

Stiffly, Winter nods for him to go ahead.

Tony presses his belly against the table as he leans forward to inspect the shoulder joint. The scar tissues were… ghastly to say the least, and the inventor had his own fair share of body horror via cavities and scars.

The metal arm grips _into_ what’s left of his shoulder, indents barely visible with the metal plates covering over it. But he just _knows_ , with the way the scars still feel tender and actively stretched.

“Do you feel the pain anymore?” He asks quietly, telegraphing his movement slowly as he places a hand over where metal and flesh meet.

“Don’t know,” Barnes replies honestly.

Perhaps sometime ago it faded into a static buzz, perhaps its because he’s felt worse. And the arm has been there for a long time, that much, he remembers.

“Right.”

Tony picks up his tools and starts dismantling the metal panels.

It isn’t as complex as it seems; from the panel at the pit of his arms that was made to protrude out more than the others by a margin for easy maintenance, the rest of have a rhythm to them. From the wrist to upper arm, he only has to push it up slightly before sliding it out.

Wrist to fingers, however, is its own monster, where the wire soldering clues him in that they had worked on its mechanisms separately to truly capture precision.

 _But it can be better,_ he wiggles one finger up and down, ignoring the odd look he was getting from Winter. The finger joints were stiffer than he expected, and Tony bet he could make the transition smoother.

“Definitely making you a new one,” Tony mutters under his breath as his gaze shifts to the area of damage.

If the Winter Soldier was anything in execution, it would be vicious. Exact? Not so much, considering how the arm looked like a rabid dog sank its teeth into it and gnawed, only to get electrocuted and causing it to spit out the remains of wires and tracking chip. Even under magnification, it’d still be a pain to get the small bits and pieces out.

He pokes at the frayed wire ends. “Any reaction?”

Winter thinks about it before shrugging his flesh shoulder.

“Helpful,” Tony quips, swerving his chair back to retrieve a partially completed Widow’s bite.

He turns down the voltage and switches out the capacitor to give it a longer charge.

“J, chart the course of insertion angles to remove all stray pieces in the shortest amount of time.” He claps once, and a holographic interference appears between the both of them, projecting the area of concern.

Tony flips the modified Widow’s bite like he would a coin. “Now, here’s how it’s going to work, one-armed wonder. Your arm works on electrical pulses like our nervous system does for it to function, and I don’t know how much anaesthesia I have to give to you for it to work since your many-headed possessive ex probably gave you many cocktails of fuck knows what and you might have grown immune to traditional implements. Capsicle takes an elephant’s dosage, and I don’t have that much on hand right now.”

“So. I will run a small voltage charge through your arm, which will hopefully, feel like you’re being numbed since your reception will be one static, nonsensical wave. If it shuts it down completely, even better. And while that occurs, I will try my best to pull out as many stray bits as possible and reconnect the wires so it will be fully functional at the very least. And _then_ I’ll tackle building you a new arm from your current schematics. Capiche?”

“Understood.”

Tony rolls his eyes, “Don’t need to go all military on me, Winter. Save that for my Rhodey-bear; he’ll appreciate it.”

Gently, he attaches the Widow’s bite near his elbow before activating it.

The change is instantaneous.

The soldier’s jaw locks with a click as if he expects resistance. His eyes widened and grows wild before it starts sinking into blankness. Both his hands involuntarily clench and his work table whines under the pressure the soldier suddenly exerts.

“Electricity is a trigger?” Tony says in disbelief.

His loud voice seemed to cut through the building haze because Barnes suddenly snaps back, shoving the work table so harshly it knocks the air out of Tony’s stomach. Tools and items clatter on the ground and U makes a mournful sound at the mess being made.

Meanwhile, Tony wheezes and flails as he catches the end of the table to prevent himself from falling over. JARVIS jerks the table back into its original position with the installed magnets, and Tony rights himself with his AI’s help.

The modified shocker is long gone, crushed into unrecognisable bits in the Winter Soldier’s flesh hand. He lets it fall back onto the table, blue eyes hardened into glaciers, rage just below melting point.

Tony thinks anger is a better look on him than defeat.

With the metal hatches gone and metal wires exposed, some drooping out from the lack of supports, James Barnes looks like a half-constructed soldier. Mangled but still alive. Chest heaving with indignation, as he should be.

Tony straightens his spine, ignoring the twinge of pain. “Right, no electricity. What do you suggest we do, soldier?”

“Finish the maintenance.”

He demands it with commanding certainty with no stumbling of syllables.

Tony really needs to stop forgetting that beneath the skin of a man is a still a weapon HYDRA had honed and kept around for decades.

_He didn’t outlive his usefulness; he escaped. Like Nat. Like me._

And they were dangerous, the lot of them.

“Do you think you can stop freaking out for a bit?” Tony suggests sharply. “I think we’ve established that I’m not going to attempt anything remotely voodoo, and I’ve previously set conditions for my service.”

Mutinously, the Winter Soldier sits back down and places his arm back on the table.

As Tony stalks towards his workshop’s bathroom in search for the industrial medical kit Bruce buried, he asks: “Is it the long, continuous shock or do short ones bother you too?”

“Not intent on finding out.”

“But I have to know if we are to do anything about your arm,” the inventor shoots back. When he digs out the familiar white box buried from under a traffic cone – he doesn’t even want to _remember_ how it got there – he lets out an exclamation of triumph.

Opening the box, he digs around for Cho’s applied anaesthetic cream and the morphine shots. They’re not completely suitable, but they would have to do for now.

He throws it in the soldier’s direction. “Apply that and inject a few of those,” he instructs. “We’re going double pronged.”

Fabricating a small, intermittent voltage current wouldn’t be difficult at all. _Hopefully it will numb and confuse his mind enough to not register any signals of pain,_ Tony theorises.

And since it will take some time for the medication to take effect, Tony begins conversationally, “How have you been adjusting? Has Capsicle being bothering you?”

Winter stops frowning at his shoulder although the confused expression stays on his face. “Steve hasn’t posed any trouble. He… asks. Frequently. He doesn’t barge or demand.”

 “Would you look at that. The good Captain is respecting boundaries.”

“Wouldn’t speak too soon, it’s only been days.”

Tony huffs out a small laugh. “He’ll be barking at your door soon, for sure. He’s never been the type to let things lie.”

“He’s stubborn, yeah. Never listened to what people told him to do,” Bucky recalls. “Shouldn’t ‘ave joined the army but he did. Shouldn’ta pick fights with bullies in alleyways armed with trashcan covers cus’ he always got dumpstered on.”

“Now that’s something you don’t ever hear from history books,” Tony grins.

“He’s just… Stevie. Steve.” He corrects himself in confession. “He’s both but he’s not.”

The unspoken “like me” hangs, but the history of a Winter Soldier is far heavier and more blood-soaked. It is a legacy he never asked for, but one he has built for himself on a hill of corpses.

They can’t be the same people after what they’ve been through, and Tony is intimately familiar with that fact. He glances at the clock behind Winter. _Two more minutes._

Experimentally, he pokes Winter with a shock stick.

He earns himself a deadpanned stare, to which he smiles back at.

“Difference in amount of sensation felt from one to ten?”

“Two.”

“Lesser or more?”

“Less.”

“Better than nothing,” Tony decides, picking up a piece of tweezers. “We practice safe penetration here, so if you can’t handle it, the safe word is Red October.”

Barnes’ face flickers through a variety of emotions so much so that Tony has to hold back a cackle. Testily, he zaps him a few times to see how much his fingers twitch and by the fourth time, Winter barely reacts.

Tony gets to work immediately, following JARVIS’s instructions on how to remove the stray parts. Every time he has to dig deeper, he sends an electric current a second before the insertion to confuse the electric pulses.

 _Should I give him more sensitivity or less for his new arm?_ The inventor thinks absently. _Sensitivity contributes to better reflexes and handling, but Winter probably uses the limb as an active defence…_

Before he realises it, he’s done with the removal and reconnecting the wiring and touching up on the circuitry. With a soldering iron clamped in between his teeth as he maneuverers two wires together, it almost feels like he’s working on an Iron Man gauntlet rather than someone’s actual arm.

Tony leans back when he’s done, admiring the arm in its fixed glory. _Much better._

“Clench your hand,” he requests after every completed action. “Flex. Rotate your wrist.”

 _Stiff_. He notes, tracing the pathways and soldering.

Finally satisfied, he moves towards the shoulder joint.

When Tony unveils the last section of the arm’s metal hatch, he bites back a string of curses.

He drops his screwdriver and the plate on the table because he’s vibrating with so much anger and he can’t work under such conditions.

He doesn’t need a fucking x-ray result to tell him the arm is designed to claw into shoulder and perhaps hook onto bone because he can see the hard wires drilled into flesh, and small patches of old blood they never managed to fully clean out.  The mechanical arm is the _disease_ that takes hold and creeps into biological systems, and Tony tries to push back the horror of how far they could have gone.

Straight to spine? Or they did they leave him at the mercy of the shoulder joint? Even then, the weight of the arm was heavier compared to his original one and the soldier has had to live with the imbalance for years.

 The beauty of the arm buries cruelty in its mechanisms.

And Tony doesn’t even want to think about how painful the shocks must to be to a man who has a _metal arm_ to conduct the electricity and cause a feedback until all the energy was exhausted. (And what if it gets hot enough to burn? Those scar tissues are _pink_ on a super soldier; how many times has he been roasted and later flash-frozen?)

“I’m going to help you take the arm off, no matter what,” Tony declares hoarsely.

He had suspected torture, he knew he wouldn’t like the things he’d find but the known always had a way of making things worse.

“J, get Cho on this _now_. And I want several arm surgeons and make them sign the NDAs ASAP. Make sure they get the case anonymously. Damn it,” he slams his fist on the table, rattling everything with his outrage, “Do everything in your power to speed this up buddy.”

The day he has that wretched arm removed and burnt couldn’t come too soon.

Haunted brown eyes scrutinise the man who had been forcefully carved and moulded, wishing there were more visible signs of abuse. Just how many untold stories of torture were buried by his abnormal healing factor? 

Tony swallows, drumming his chest.

Ice blue eyes stare back at him, unwavering. “… Know you will. You promised.”

But Tony doesn’t know if he can properly put this man back together even with the resources he has.

“Come down to my workshop next week again. We’ll have majority of the new arm drafted, and the shoulder joint figured out. For now, let’s go get that damn x-ray done.”


	9. Colours of Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The soldier is relearning.

_It’s strange,_ Bucky thinks as he presses his hand against the cold, tinted glass window, _how it’s so quiet._

Quiet in spite of being located in the middle of the metropolitan city where there is traffic at every hour of the day and people milling on the sidewalks. Day and night scarcely falters in brightness between the transition of blinding rays to technicolour and arc reactor blue; its lights bouncing off skyscrapers and their large mirrored widows.

But Winter supposes its partly due to the thick glass – _fifty-five millimetres thick and bullet proof_ – and the floor his room was located on. The Stark Tower provides for an isolated chamber that can shut out the world if he wished: darkened windows, locked doors and freezing cold, but he finds himself not needing them as much.

The Tower is a safehouse. A partition that solidly places him on the other side of the reality. His current residence is fortified technologically like it is a science fiction novel, with soft rugs on the ground that he can dig his toes in and all basic amenities provided for him. He has access to information and he is allowed time to himself.

It is honestly more than a soldier could ask for.

Except, he knows he can’t keep staying in his room or alternating to the workshop.

At least, that is what Tony insists.

“You’re really offending my sensibilities here,” Stark tells him as he stands in the middle of holograms projecting different arm designs. “I have a fully _furnished_ tower full of entertainment like a cinema, game room, shooting gallery, art studio and even a blast zone and you choose to stay in one place? My bachelor pad is a _wet dream_ and you’re not using it properly.”

Turning to look at him, figure silhouetted in electric blue and brown eyes glistening with what Winter can only identify as foresight, he continues, “Don’t get me wrong. I’m flattered you can identify a genius at its work and know how to observe. Great that I can have more hands-on time with your arm and suiting the new one to your needs. But the world is at your fingers and it’s fine to take. To re-explore.”

And it’s not that Winter fears the great unknown.

Or that he’s lost his touch in traversing the world through shadows, dodging around peripheries because that’s the way he was instructed to live.

There’s just been a persistent, niggling part in the back of his mind as of late.

Pieces finally resurfacing and coming together. (Synapses healing from its years of damage.) Fragmented memories recategorizing themselves into past and present.

(The Asset requires another wipe.)

An interface telling him about the requests he had rejected. Others he had left unanswered.

“Mr. Winter, the good Captain has asked if it is fine to gift you another picture.”

Winter swallows. “That’s fine. Thank you, JARVIS.”

Moments later, distantly, he hears the elevator doors slide open with a soft ‘ding’. Perhaps it is a warning JARVIS prompts him with because Tony’s ascent tends to be silent in comparison, where his lumbering footsteps were the only signs of another life in the penthouse.

Softly, feet pad over to his room. The shadow behind the door is always larger than what he imagines it would be as the man stops in front of it and kneels to push the paper through the thin slit. Barnes waits for Steve to sigh and leave before he slides off his bed to pick up the drawing.

He gestures for JARVIS to turn up the light intensity.

Then, he carefully brushes flesh fingers over the drawing. It’s a street in Brooklyn this time, he realises belatedly. In charcoal, the artist imitates the weathering of brick and mortar in spots of colours, sketching soft strings of ivy climbing up the structure and wrapping around pipes.

But there are glimmers of old. He perceives the pencil marks left behind the pristine, new signboards like Stevie had caught himself sketching the wrong landscape. The confused contents behind clear glass windows were consequently better left as a smear.

Barnes recalls the dingy alley way between the uniform alteration shop and the barber’s, even though the former is now a restaurant bar. He closes his eyes and imagines the muted sounds of the street, the smell of sulphur and heated basalt and the mutterings of a best friend who couldn’t quite get the dimensions of the buildings right.

Slowly, he opens his eyes. He lifts the drawing and tapes it above his headboard. It joins the existing collage of black, white and greys, and he surveys the spread once more. His gaze tends to rest on those he remembers.

The picture of Coney Island, where he has a view of the roller coaster stuck at the brink of falling. Each cart link is meticulously drawn and while he can’t fully make out the expressions of the passengers, the whitening of knuckles on the metal bars is unmistakable. He remembers laughing at skinny elbows and blue eyes as he hurled his guts out in the trash bin.

He turns towards the next one, arguably one of Steve’s largest pieces.

Sarah Rogers smiles at him, one hand seemingly stretching out of the canvas to caress his cheek. The shaded linens and hospital bed she rest on swallow her sickly frame and highlight her thinness. He’s trying to remember how his skin felt beneath her touch but he can’t – all he has are those before.

The image he has thus far is of a woman with blonde hair keeps a messy bun up by a pencil, chiding at them as she stirs a pot of thin stew. The kitchen she stands in is worn but the woman invests life into it with the soft crackle of fire and her soft hums. She is a swish of threadbare, flowery fabrics, a patchwork of grit and survival.

He can’t think of her withering away in illness. He knows Bucky once told Stevie that his harsh charcoal lines made her too gaunt. That he emphasised too much on what the illness had done to her and less of what she was because he was attempting to push away the fact that Sarah Rogers was dying.

But Stevie, who had been in the grips of illnesses for majority of his life had been adamant he hadn’t been overtly harsh.  This was his interpretation of his mother. _This_ was how she was to him, in blacks and whites.

Winter supposes he finally gets it.

In the negative space of her eyes where blues are supposed to fill, its starkness screamed of a startling fire. The dry fissures of her lips do nothing to deter a smile. Her muscles might be lacking strength but she will find it within herself to reach.

Winter wonders if he could be like her.

That in the times where his reflection doesn’t disgust him, he can look at himself and see the same fire in paler blue irises and not view his existence like it was a hopeless cause.

“Where’s Steve?” Barnes asks.

“The Captain is currently in his art studio on his floor, Mr. Winter,” JARVIS replies.

“Can… directions, please.”

“Of course. Take two floors down and it will be the furthest door on the right hallway. Would you like me to alert him of your presence?”

“.. Will tell him myself.”

“As you wish.”

The journey there is understandably nerve-wracking. It’s not like crossing states or countries undetected but he can’t help the wariness coursing through his veins. It takes him even longer to track down the hallway than what it takes for him to get into the elevator.

At the end of it all, he comes to a standstill at the doorway, watching an artist in his element. In the dying light, his blonde hair is dusted in evening reds and charcoal and his stronger forearms are streaked black. He’s so focused on his artwork he doesn’t realise that he’s gained an admirer.

“You were slightly colour-blind,” Barnes croaks out, “that’s why you preferred using charcoals instead of paints. You also said you preferred charcoal cus’ people colour their perspectives differently and you’d rather let em’ fill in the blanks to what they see.”

Steve’s head snaps towards him the moment he speaks. His chosen apparatus peppers his cheeks like freckles and his lips curl into a wide smile.

“Yeah, I said that.” Steve agrees, placing the charcoal back on the easel. He doesn’t try to get out of his seat to surround him in a hug. But tentatively, he tries, “Bucky?”

Barnes shakes his head. He doesn’t know how many times he’ll have to repeat himself. “Not him. Remembered more thanks to your drawings… but not him. Never will be… likely. Don’t know how to be him anymore.”

Steve sighs, his voice growing quieter. “It _has_ been a long time. I should be grateful that you remember anything at all, considering what you were put through. I’m sorry that I didn’t—”

“Don’t.” Winter cuts in loudly. Louder than he expected. His vehemence rings through the studio and he forces himself to stay put. Inhaling deeply, he continues. “There’s nothing you could’ave done. You went under. You couldn’t have known. Suffered but… m’ here alright? I’m here.”

His old best friend half-jerks out of his seat before he catches himself. As he sits back down, he tries to compose himself before settling on two damning words. “Are you?”

Choosing not to give an answer (because that’s something Winter hasn’t figured out yet), he scrutinises the new drawing of the cityscape, “You’ve gotten better.”

Steve shrugs to lighten the slump of his shoulders. “I had time to practice and the serum gave me better vision and corrected my slight colour blindness. The future is pretty bright these days, isn’t it?”

“Little too much sometimes but… it’s alright. Tells me that m’ here.”

It is infinitely better than the dark.

“And the world didn’t get brighter, ya just started seeing more, punk.”

Throwing his head back slightly, Steve laughs, “You’re probably right. Is… Is everything getting better for you then?”

“Subjective,” he repeats the word Bruce tends to use. “Tony is tryna’ make me a new arm to replace this one… he’s trying to rig up a system to get ma’ head sorted out. It’s… going.”

Steve’s smile softens. “Progress… That’s good to hear. He’s amazing like that, isn’t he? The way he manages to come up with solutions off the bat?”

“Like you wouldn’t _believe_. He jus’… ramble things like they aren’t ground-breakin’ or near impossible and he just _does it_. Like his repulsor tech – he jus’ talks about energy levels, speeds and vectors and everythin’ and it flies over my head but he gets these things instinctively by heart. Asked him bout flyin’ cars and he said he could but he wouldn’t cus’ tall buildings ain’t conducive to it and its dumb on hindsight since we already have planes.”

Chuckling, Steve replies: “He’s got a point there. And we definitely don’t need air traffic to add on to the busy cities.” He pauses. “I always thought that you and Tony would get along like a house of fire due to your mutual love for science. I’m glad I’m not wrong on that front.”

Barnes wants to say that he’s relearning what he used to love. Sometimes Tony totting around certain tools still raises his hackles. Disembodied electronic voices make him freeze on his worst days but the accented lilt of JARVIS and FRIDAY’s voice jolts him back to reality. Sometimes, the knowledge of the future overwhelms him and he craves the cold.

Hoarsely, “It’s hard not ta’ when you keep seeing a lil’ bunny bouncing off his feet while considering all the possibilities.”

Steve snorts. “Bunny. Tony would never let you hear the end of it if you called him that.”

“He isn’t in a position to complain with his nicknames,” Barnes retorts. “His names are a bag of dumb.”

“Capsicle,” Steve contributes.

“Winter Wonderland.”

“Doritos.”

That earns Steve a curious look.

Sighing, he explains, “Lays decided to use me as a mascot for their cool ranch chips.”

Barnes gives him a small smirk. “Delicious.”

“Oh, _shut up_.”

“M’ guessing Spangled Man is your list too?”

The Captain buries his face in his hands. “Don’t even talk about it. There was a week in the tower where every screen was playing the dance I did with the USO. I don’t even want to _know_ where he dug that footage out from.”

It takes a good person to not laugh at his misery. Winter is not a good person.

“Think… I regretted not seeing at least one performance,” Barnes admits as he sifts through his old memories.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you wished you were there to laugh at my performance. Said ‘you wanted to join the army and now you’re a glorified dancing monkey’. Never wished you would choke on your own spit right there and then.”

“It’s cus’ you deserved it for being a scrawny lil’ punk who couldn’t take no for an answer. Couldn’t even _breathe_ right most days and ya wanted to go fight a war.”

” But made it, didn’t I? M’ here.”

“You shit,” Barnes exhales, finally moving forward to hug Steve.

The chair gets knocked over as Steve reaches out as well, and they converge. They stand at similar heights, they’re both broader and he still has the damn metal arm but it feels like a part of him finally came home.

Like they’re at the end of war, and the best thing is being able to return to his family alive. It’s dropping his baggage on the ground and opening his arms wide for his loved ones to barrel into him, bony elbows digging into his sides and their collective giggles vibrating against his chest.

It’s not the same (he’s seven decades too late) but the soldier can settle what little he has left in this world.

“Would you tell me about everythin’?” He asks after a long while, voice muffled by Steve’s shoulder.

He can hear the smile in his tone. “Anything you want, buddy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter in Bucky-perspective! Hope you liked it, and thank you for reading :))


	10. reveal not the truth

“Boss, there is something you need to see.”

Tony looks up from the gauntlet he was soldering in surprise. “Lay it down for me, baby girl.”

For a moment, the screen in front of him fizzles, switching back and forth from one program to another. “FRIDAY, are you certain this does not conflict with your primary protocols?”

“It’s in Boss’s prerogative to know, JARVIS.” FRIDAY argues. “The Creating Unit has assigned designation FRIDAY to corroborate and decrypt approximately 12.6 petabytes of information and inform him of her findings. I am trying to complete the task.”

And as she says that, both his AIs immediately fall silent. If Tony hadn’t made a promise to himself to never check the coding of his creations beyond installing upgrades and periodic server sweeps, he would be pulling up an interface to witness the conversation in string of numbers and letters. Impatiently, he raps his fingers on the table to wait the conflict out.

Minutes later, FRIDAY spoke up again. Her simulated voice was tinny, almost begrudging. “Boss, the information might cause significant harm to your mental state. Do you wish to continue?”

“Contents?”

“It concerns the death of Boss’s parents.”

Humming, Tony gestures for her to bring it up. JARVIS’s presence flickers in concern at his periphery.

 _PM 7:00, DEC 16 1991,_ the camera footage reads at the bottom left.

Tony freezes. He couldn’t look away from the car wreck.

Couldn’t unhear the pleas. Couldn’t stop the apathetic violence executed by a familiar figure. It feels like time slows when the fist descends, silver ice-bright against the camera lens. Time _stops_ when he hears the shortened gasps, which were _deafening_ against the silence of the killer.

A small cry tears from his throat and it feels like someone ripped the arc reactor out from his chest again.

 _Except it’s not there._ Tony clutches onto the table, shaking and struggling to breathe, filled with so many emotions he couldn’t care to name.

Rage. Grief. Disappointment. Shock. _Who was—who is- breathing so loud?_

He claws blindly for the familiar metal rims— something— anything— that reminds him of where he was. _Why can’t I breathe by the Tesla—_

“Sir, it is currently 2AM in the morning. You are in Stark Tower, New York. You are safe. Temperature levels are at 16-degree Celsius. The humidity is at 58 percent, and winds speeds stand at 24 kilometres per hour. Forecasts show that it is expected to rain in the late afternoon.”

_JARVIS. DUM-E. U. BUTTERFINGERS. FRIDAY. JOCASTA._

“I’m okay.” Tony exhales through his mouth. “I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Your heart rate is elevated, Sir.”

His hand slams against the table, remark biting, “I _know_! Goddamnit JARVIS. Stop. _Stop_.”

He scrubs his face. His AI didn’t deserve to be mistreated like this. But he can’t—

“FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Boss?”

“I want you to find where this video has been. I want to know every location, and every person that has come across it. I don’t care if they fucking brushed against it or watched it. _Everything_. Search and destroy sans this copy. And the notes attached to this? I want them. _Now.”_

What once displayed the schematics of his newest Iron Man armour was replaced with visuals of old SHIELD documents. They span across the room in a three-sixty perspective and it is a cursed treasure trove of information Tony never wanted to see.

It takes only a glance at the first entry before he turns away from his table to throw up.

—

 **Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Department  
**Human Resources Department

December 16, 1991

From: Agent Sybille Powell  
To: Director Margaret Carter  
Subject: AUTOPSY OF [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]

From the anatomic findings and pertinent history, I ascribe the death to:

(A) Blunt force trauma to H[REDACTED]’s cranium

(B) Asphyxiation for M[REDACTED]  
Due to, or as a consequence of, or  
Strangulation

—

 **Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Department  
**Strategic Department

December 16, 1991

From: Agent Nicholas Fury  
To: Director Margaret Carter

Upon reviewing the circumstances of [REDACTED]’s death and [REDACTED]’s position as [REDACTED], the Strategic Department has suggested the following responses:

  1. To disguise the true causes of death;



Bringing attention to the unnatural causes of [REDACTED]’s death could draw unwarranted and unnecessary attention from [REDACTED] whose existence has been confirmed by the attached recording. Information corroborated with the defected [REDACTED] has stated the same. Facial recognition compared to our archives have confirmed [REDACTED]’s suspicions that [REDACTED] is [REDACTED].

The revelation of sabotage in [REDACTED]’s vehicular accident and subsequent death could cause unseen consequences on the societal level, and SHIELD’s priorities are now directed towards Afghanistan and the investigation into the conditions of the Soviet Union.

…

And he continues to read, his body grows colder with anger.

Tony sees the betrayal in the names listed. The measures they had went through to cover up the deaths of his parents weighs on him heavily, and if the organisation wasn’t already buried by their own mistakes, he would have taken vicious satisfaction in using the weight as the nail to their coffin.

_Request to investigate the motives behind [REDACTED] and [REDACTED]’s death_

Denied.

_Shifting the case of [REDACTED] into Clearance Level 8._

Approved.

The database keeps spitting out information about the death of its founder without any form of retribution forthcoming, and a check of the names yields how deeply HYDRA had infiltrated by then.

“Boss?”

“What,” he says vacantly.

“Tracking the digital footprint of the recording has ended in Camp Lehigh in New Jersey.”

“… The one Rogers and Romanoff blew to kingdom come?”

His baby girl’s silence is all he needs.

_“Sergeant Barnes?” his father rasps._

_Bang. Bang._

…

 

“Did you know?”

Steve pauses at the door of the workshop, plate of food and coffee in hand.

He glances at the screen that lights up in front of him curiously, although a deep sense of dread sinking into pit of his stomach. “Know what?”

In the background, the sound of a video starts playing.

It begins with a loud crash, followed by the painful moans of the pair in the car. Smoke rises from the front as if it was a help signal before it burst into flames. A light enters the camera scope like Charon beckons forth; death coming to collect the souls of the dead.

Captain America turns to look at the Tony, whose eyes were so dark with anger it threatens to swallow him whole. It’s like staring into the abyss; at the monstrous rage which had manifested itself in the skin of a man, blood so heavy it bulges veins. It sparks electric. The inventor had already set the fuse.

He sets the food aside on the table, and plants himself down on the explosive. His hands curl behind his back in a parade rest but his interlocking arms feel like chains. He’s walking into his execution and he sees it — in the serrated edges of Tony’s lips, in the scowl that resembles the curve of a scythe.

Truthfully, he says: “I didn’t know it was him at first.”

 “It’s a yes or no question, not rocket science which calls for explanations so don’t fucking _bullshit_ me, Rogers!” Stark _roars_ , voice brimming with so much rage it echoes in the large space. The vibrations shake him. “Did. You. _Know_?”

Steve closes his eyes and hangs his head.

“…Yes.”

“And yet, here you stand.” Heavily, Iron Man rises from his seat, bright lights casting a deadly shadow on a ground. As he moves towards him, the tip of darkness touching his boots, it feels like a rift had opened up between them, a juxtaposition to the closing distance.

“My friends don’t tell me things,” Tony hurls his words back him, mocking. “How _does_ hypocrisy taste on your tongue, Captain? Does it numb? Or are you too cold, too _righteous_ to even feel its bite?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Steve whispers, torn.

“And I’m not sure if I believe you anymore. Oh wait. I don’t.”

“Tony please—”

Tony steps back when he tries to reach for him. “Nope. Not interested. I don’t want to hear it.” His eyes are wild in red, and shaded like a living bruise, filled with so much anguish and pain that Steve has to ask himself what he has done.

The mechanic seemed to have found something in his expression after scrutinising it for a moment because his voice _cracks_. A whisper: “And the worst part is… you’re actually not sorry.”

Louder, “You’re just sorry _you got caught._ You would have continued the lie if it meant you could find and keep your _precious Bucky—_ everything else to you was secondary, to be used and discarded. Did you really think the past would have remained buried? _You_ didn’t die.”

It’s like a slap in the face.

“Were you even going to _tell me_?”

And for a moment, Tony wishes futilely that Captain America would say something in protest to his accusation.

But only a gunshot rings in the silence.

“That’s what I thought.” Tony swallows the bile rising up his throat.

Finally, Steve replies, “He’s a friend.”

Dagger sharp, like he was sliding it into his ribs, Tony says:

“So was I.”

A pause. “…Who needs enemies with friends like these?”

“Mr. Rogers, please step out of Sir’s workshop before I am forced to use lethal force against you.” The ceiling panels shift in warning.

Despite the firing squad pointed at him, Steve finds himself standing still, _hoping_ , that his sincerity would go through. That he could strike a chord in the man he let bleed, as if he was reaching into the wound to dig into his abused heart.

“I am so sorry.”

“Are you, Rogers? _Are you?_ Because you’re delusional if you think apologies will work. Get _out_ before I do something we will both regret.”

Slowly, Steve backs out from the workshop, hoping Tony would spare him another glance.

He doesn’t; and when the door shuts, each lock turning and shutting with a click, it feels like it’s a bell tolling for an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things were bound to hit the fan


End file.
